As Malaysia enters a pivotal year for institutional reform, the Madani (trustworthy) government has signalled a commitment to transparency through a proposed freedom of information bill.
In July 2025, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim made a landmark promise: to introduce a freedom of information act that would “overturn the longstanding ‘secrecy by default’ culture”.
He said it would strengthen transparency and give the public real access to government decisions. He framed this as a vital step in building public trust and accountability and encouraging informed participation in our democracy.
However, for the 16% of the Malaysian population with disabilities – and the 30–40% of people who act as their care partners – this promise is not a reality, and we are locked out of the reform process.
This is because the current legislative process in Malaysia for the amendments to the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 (PwD Act) are shrouded under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
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While the government speaks of transparency, the very legislation intended to empower the most vulnerable people is being drafted behind closed doors.
While we wait for the freedom of information bill to be enacted, we appeal to the prime minister to launch the process of ‘Madani transparency’ and a new chapter of public participation in Malaysia’s democracy with the current amendments to the PwD Act.
The PwD Act is of critical importance to the disability community. The 2008 act is completely powerless, not enforceable and deficient in many aspects.
The current drafting and revision process of the PwD Act is ‘heavy’ on the involvement of civil servants but weak on that of people with lived experience of disability. There is limited engagement with the disability community, who make up 30–40% of the population.
Workshops and town hall sessions to hear opinions from the disability community, civil society disability organisations and the public have been limited.
Most meetings were held face-to-face in numbers – a process not conducive to meaningful discussion. That made it very difficult for feedback and very expensive for those living some distance away to travel, skewing feedback to those invitees with the means to physically attend. A lifetime of struggle is often reduced to a few minutes of feedback.
We are concerned that the amendments might be largely lacking in 21st-Century compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that Malaysia ratified on 19 July 2010.
That would be the case if the amended PwD Act views people with disabilities as passive recipients of aid rather than active people with legal rights on an equal basis with others.
We currently lag far behind all our regional neighbours in the quality and scope of disability rights and laws.
Perhaps we could better understand the issue by looking at how India developed their Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016. This act was a decade-long journey that transitioned India’s legal framework from a charitable or medical model to a rights-based model. It is often cited as a prime example of “bottom-up” lawmaking in India, with the extensive engagement of the disability community and civil society.
Key initiatives that the government of India and its Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment took included:
- Posting the bill on the ministry’s website to invite comments from the public
- Regional and grassroots consultations across the country where people with disabilities and their families could provide direct feedback on the provisions of the draft bill
- Extensive involvement of many civil society disability organisations across India in contributing substantive input and supporting the process of obtaining wide nationwide feedback to aid the drafting with enriched contents that reflected lived realities
A similar experience occurred in Taiwan’s drafting of its People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act 2007. There was a very high level of consultation, collaboration and presence of people with disabilities and disability organisations.
Much of the drafting was not done behind closed doors in government offices but through research commissioned to experts and civil society disability organisations. It was also ensured that representatives of people with disabilities were present in the legislative chambers and at public hearings.
We appeal to the PM and, through him, the Madani government to remove the OSA restriction on the PwD Act, place the current amended act online for full public access, and institute an open review mechanism to develop a meaningful revised act. This would be in the interest of the nation as a whole and bring us on par with our Asian neighbours.
There is absolutely no need to conceal the amendments to the PwD Act under the OSA as there is no national security risk in discussing the rights of disabled persons – unless the goal is to hide weak amendments with no meaningful definition of discrimination, no redress mechanism for injustice experienced by people with disabilities, and the exclusion of civil servants from accountability.
If the Madani government is truly serious about institutional reform, it must trust the people. By opening the amendments to the PwD Act to the public for collaborative development, Malaysia can set a precedent for inclusive law-making. It would allow for the integration of critical lived-experience perspectives that civil servants may overlook.
Open-sourcing the PwD Act would ensure that the principle of “Nothing about us, without us” is a functional reality, not just a slogan.
We are now at a crossroads. We can either continue with a paternalistic approach where civil servants decide what is best for ‘the disabled’, or we can move toward a rights-based model that treats people with disabilities on an equal basis with others.
We do not need more closed-door meetings; we need the light of public participation.
Signatories
- Dato’ Dr Amar-Singh HSS, consultant paediatrician; child-disability activist; member, The OKU Rights Matter Project
- Yuenwah San, co-founder-member, The OKU Rights Matter Project
- Meera Samanther, disability-gender activist; parent advocate; committee member, Association of Women Lawyers (AWL) and Women’s Aid Organisation ( WAO)
- Anit Kaur Randhawa, parent advocate; advocate and solicitor; podcaster, Kita Family Podcast; member, The OKU Rights Matter Project
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