CNA – Malaysia’s Upper House of Parliament yesterday passed a third Bill to decriminalise suicide attempts, in addition to two Bills passed the day before.
The Mental Health (Amendment) Bill 2023 was passed with a voice vote after a third reading.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Ramkarpal Singh told members of the Upper House that the Bill is intended to empower crisis intervention officers to rescue victims who are attempting suicide.
“(This includes giving them) the space or power to forcefully break into the premises where the suicide attempt is made. It is a necessity,” he said.
He added that the focus of the Bill is on the victims.
“We believe that as a result of in-depth research and so on, what needs to be done in cases like this is to treat and not to criminalise an act of attempted suicide,” Singh (Bernama, pic below) said during a debate on the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill 2023 which seeks to amend the Mental Health Act 2001.
According to Bernama, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said (Bernama, pic below) said previously that these amendments will define the post and powers of crisis intervention officers.
It also includes a moratorium for the implementation of Section 309 of the Penal Code until the repeal of the section is completed and gazetted.
On Tuesday, two Bills related to the decriminalisation of suicide attempts were passed by the Upper House.
Singh said then that there are several provisions which provide that a person who attempts suicide must be taken to a medical facility for treatment.
“The priority in these amendments is to rehabilitate a person who is thinking of taking his or her own life.
“That will also take a long time because it involves a psychological process and so on to rehabilitate the person,” he was quoted as saying by Bernama while wrapping up the debates on the Bills. According to Bernama, Azalina previously said that the Bills to decriminalise attempted suicide contain measures including retaining the offence of abetting suicide under Sections 305 and 306 of the Penal Code.
She said the Bills also differentiate the categories of those who are incited to commit the actions of attempted suicide or suicide.
The Bills will have to be presented to the King for approval and then gazetted in order for the The Bills were tabled for first reading by Azalina on April 4 and were passed in the Lower House of Parliament on May 22 and 23.
Azalina said in a statement on April 4 that the government hopes the reform will encourage those affected to seek help, remove the stigma of suicide and lower the country’s suicide death rate.
She also said then that the government also proposes strengthening punishment for cases of aiding suicide involving children and mentally incapacitated people.
“This is based on the fact that suicide attempts are within the scope of suicidal behaviour and this act is the impact of mental incapacity or psychiatric disorder,” Azalina said.
In comments made last year, former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said Malaysia had in 2021 recorded 1,142 suicide cases, compared to 631 cases in 2020. Its suicide mortality rate was at 5.7 per 100,000 population in 2019, according to the most recent data from World Bank.
