Malaysia has withdrawn an amendment to a bill tabled in parliament for debate that would have raised the age limit for purchasing tobacco products to target those born before 2007.
Malaysia’s health minister Keri Jamaludin after a meeting with the Committee on Children, Women and Social Development and the chairman of the Committee on Science, Health and Innovation withdrew the amendment to the law in voting which provided that anyone born after 2007 would not be legally allowed to purchase tobacco and that the age limit was for anyone born before this year and reduced the fine for related offenses from 5000 rigs to 500 rigs including the eventuality of community service to pay the fines in the statutory provisions.
The committees said that police checks carried out on minors are not allowed and that the health minister should not appoint anybody to enforce the law and reviewed the human rights charter on the rights of the child and raised non-imprisonment rights and non-registration rights in police records of first occurrences of those who would try to buy tobacco.
It was requested that the passage of the legislation be suspended for at least 3 years and one member of parliament asked for a regulatory assessment to be conducted and presenting the resultant report in parliament.
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