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18-year-olds soon allowed to vote and contest in GEs

Jul 09, 2019

Soon, 18-year-olds will be able to vote in General Elections. 

The Pakatan Harapan presidential council has also agreed for voters to be automatically registered when they are of age.

The Opposition bloc earlier said they would reject the lowering of the voting age otherwise. 

They also demanded for 18-year-olds to be allowed to contest as candidates in General Elections, which the council has also agreed to.

But there needs to be constitutional amendments to implement the changes, and that will be done in this Parliament session.

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Hannah Yeoh calls for further background checks on child offenders

The government wants a more holistic look into juvenile crime.

Deputy Women Minister Hannah Yeoh says the authorities must dig into the background of child offenders, to get more data for intervention programmes. 

She also emphasised on the importance of rehabilitation for child criminals.

This follows two recent cases in Perak which saw a 12-year-old boy rape a 4-year-old girl, and a teenaged couple murder the girlfriend's brother.

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Efforts to repeal Anti-Fake News Act back in motion

The government might re-table the bill to repeal the Anti-Fake News Act in the next Parliament Session. 

The Prime Minister said the government has to wait until after August 16th, because it marks a year since the bill was first passed in the Dewan Rakyat, then thrown out by the Dewan Negara.