KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Azalina Othman said today provisions for house arrest is already present in the Prisons Act 1995, citing Section 3 of the law that empowers the home minister to designate any premises, including a residential property, as a prison.
Azalina was responding to Lim Lip Eng (Kepong, DAP) who asked if the meeting minutes of the Federal Territories Pardons Board discussing Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s application to serve his remaining sentence at home can be declassified, and if the law allows it.
The minister overseeing legal affairs said the minutes have already been declassified after Najib filed for a judicial review to compel the government to execute a supplementary decree issued by the former king.
“Based on the feedback from the Attorney General’s Chambers regarding Malaysian laws that allows for house detention as a sentence is provided for under Section 3 of the Prisons Act 1995,” she said in a written reply that was published on Parliament’s website today.
“This section empowers the minister overseeing prison matters, in this case the home minister, to designate any residence, buildings or premise as a prison for the purpose of detaining someone who was sentenced to incarceration,” she added.
“In other words, the minister has the power to designate a home as a valid premise to incarcerate a prisoner subject to all the related provisions of the Prisons Act 1995.”
In his 2025 budget speech, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said the government would draft a new Act allowing house arrest as an alternative punishment for certain offences, fuelling allegations that the law is meant to pave the way for Najib’s house arrest.
The Anwar Administration denied the allegation.
The current Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail had said there is no law that provides for home detention after he was asked if Najib could serve his remaining jail sentence at home.
The former prime minister was convicted for various corruption charges relating to millions of ringgit siphoned from SRC International.
In January the Court of Appeal, in a split ruling, granted Najib leave to proceed with his judicial review to compel the government to execute a supplementary decree issued by the former king.
Justices Firuz Jaffril and Azhahari Kamal Ramli ruled in Najib’s favour, stating that new evidence presented by the former Pekan MP had overridden the High Court’s initial finding that his affidavits were based on hearsay.
