I enjoyed reading Zainul Ariffin’s delightful piece on honorific titles (“Not A Great Time for Datuks and Datuk Seris”, NST, Feb 1), especially the part that read: “The oft-repeated phrase that if you throw a stone, you are likely to hit one (Datuk), is at least true at some organisations. I would also think that if someone were to call out ‘Datuk’ for a lark at a few private clubs, a few heads would turn.”
In the late 70s, soon after I joined the legal profession, there was a similar phrase about lawyers , that if you “throw a stone at the crowd in Masjid India, you will invariably hit a lawyer”. There were several law firms at Wisma Yakin and other shophouses along that busy street then, a popular choice for lawyers because it was only a 10-minute walk to the High Court in Jalan Raja.
The piece reminded me of a conversation I had with a couple of friends (senior, titled gentlemen) recently at a garden party at Istana Anak Bukit in Alor Star. The conversation was not on Datuks gone bad, but rather whether we have adequate laws to charge individuals peddling or using fake datukship.
I have said even before the new act on harsher penalties for offences and punishments related to the conferment of awards and titles by unauthorised individuals was passed recently that our primary criminal law, the Penal Code, has provisions to charge those involved in the sale of fake datukship.
For example, in July 2015, a 62-year-old man (reportedly a member of the Kelantan royal family) was charged in the Kota Baru Sessions Court with eight counts of fraud (falsifying documents for the awarding of state honours to 11 businessmen), an offence under Section 468 of the Penal Code, punishable with a prison term of seven years and a fine. About the same time, another man (who claimed to be a Datuk Seri) and a single mother were charged at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court on eight counts of cheating by claiming that they could obtain the title of Datuk Kerabat Diraja Kelantan for anyone interested at a cost of more than RM700,000.
Another case was in March last year, when Perak police arrested eight individuals suspected of being involved in peddling bogus state awards. According to state police chief Datuk Seri Abd Rahim Hanafi, the suspects were arrested in Johor, Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Perak in an operation codenamed “Op Anugerah”. He had said police had been receiving reports of such scams since 2013 and action had to be taken because the incidents had “tarnished the image of the Perak royal institution”.
Perhaps the most notorious case of bogus datukship was the self-proclaimed “Sultan of Malacca”, Noor Jan Tuah, and the Undang Luak (chieftain) of Naning, Negri Sembilan, Datuk Abdul Latif Hashim. None of these awards were recognised by the relevant authorities.
Last April, police raided a “royal banquet” and detained 27 people, including the Malacca “sultan” who called himself “Raja Noor Jan Shah Tuah”. The banquet was held following an “investiture” that morning where 47 people were conferred datukship at a house in Taman Setiawan, Alor Gajah, Malacca.
In December, the Dewan Negara passed two new laws meant to put an end to the peddling and use of fake datukships and other state awards. They are the Offences Related to Awards Act 2016 and Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) (Amendment) Act 2016.
The first law, which is directed at the offence of peddling fake datukships and other state awards, contains 19 sections and two schedules spread over five parts. It prohibits people from accepting any “unrecognised award” and using it in any form in the country or abroad. The penalty is a prison term of not more than three years. The law also prohibits attending, promoting or taking part in unauthorised investitures, with penalties of up to RM10,000, a jail term not exceeding three years, or both.
The second law is an amendment of an existing law, the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act 1963 (otherwise referred to as Act 414), revised in 1989 and amended in 1995. The principal objective of this law, when passed in 1963, is to prevent the improper use of certain emblems and names for professional and commercial purposes.
The objective of the recent 2016 amendment is to insert a new section that increases the earlier penalty of a fine not exceeding RM1,000 to a fine not exceeding RM20,000, a prison term not exceeding three years, or both.
The new laws must be enforced to put a stop to the sale and conferment of fake datukships, state awards and other honorific titles.
Salleh Buang formerly served the Attorney-General’s Chambers before he left for practice, the corporate sector and, then, the academia