iii. Transitional It should be noted that the concept of ‘transitional’ introduced by the proposed ill is different from the meaning of retrospective. As such, any persons whose trial have been completed and have been sentenced are not entitled to a retrial and to use the amended Act. The Commission is of the opinion that any amendments should reflect the spirit in which they were made, which in this case, is to exclude certain categories of offenders. Thus, the inclusion of a retrospective clause would put meaning to the intention and spirit of the amendment. In the meantime, the Commission urges that a moratorium on the use of death penalty be put into effect. The Commission also hopes that the government will progressively review the relevance and effectiveness of capital punishment in other offences. On a different development, the Commission has expressed its interest to participate in the Asia Pacific Forum on ‘Abolition of the Death Penalty Project’ (ADPP) which was duly submitted in May 2017. The Commission had been selected and given funds by APF to organise related activities. As part of the project, a position paper would be submitted to Parliament, which covers outcomes of the activities and recommendations of the issues related to the death penalty. At the time of writing, the Commission has conducted several working meetings with relevant stakeholders and workshops with students in University of Selangor and Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of May 2018. 8. ACCESS TO INFORMATION IN MALAYSIA The need for information to be freely accessible is vital to create a transparent and open society. While the government has a need to protect certain information which may have a bearing on national security, this must not be used as an excuse to prohibit the sharing of information and lack of transparency from the government. Pursuant to this, the Commission together with the Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) had commenced an activity on the access to information in Malaysia. A roundtable discussion (RTD) with stakeholders comprising civil society groups and representatives from government 26 S UH A KA M A N N UA L R E P O R T 2 0 1 7