How the Public Ombudsman Works

1. A Public Ombudsman is an investigation and enforcement body outside the Executive to ensure the Executive is legal, efficient, and fair. It includes a powerful whistleblower protection unit; a fierce public interest litigation unit; a national school & children’s case unit. 
2. It is immune to ancient tricks of misconduct and political loopholes: it severs cables with no public service officers (e.g., external hiring); it has disciplinary, restorative, punitive, and legal jurisdiction; its funding is a set % of the Federal Budget; penalties based on an officer's salary; its top panel is publicly nominated, debated, and elected; its timelines are legally enforceable; its final resolutions are public; it is publicly audited by a non-government firm; it receives anonymous reports; its history of cases are open for media review. 

The Fastest, Widest Impacts

1. Each month, Malaysia’s enforcement agencies, media, and politicians are alerted to the simmering mass of injustices in 100s of districts and dozens of Ministries: paedophile teachers, burning hospitals, absent teachers, abused healthcare workers, corrupt enforcement officers, millions (or billions) in leakages. We in the public service know our top officers can effortlessly hide scandals much faster than anyone can expose them.
2. But ordinary public servants are also victims of the same corruption. Yet, we are also the catalysts and beneficiaries of a clean government if we are protected and can testify in independent proceedings. Whistleblowers are in every Ministry, can number in the millions with eyes on every inch of government. Yet, whistleblowers can only effect change with independent investigations and independent enforcement. Today, most disciplinary and enforcement commissions are made up of former public servants of the very same Ministry. Thus, today’s “independent” enforcement is a dangerous farce.
3. Whistleblowers can make outsized impacts on marginalised communities including B40, Sabah, Sarawak, and rural areas with little legal, media, or CSO oversight. Best yet, a Public Ombudsman does not need to enforce new laws nor regulations. It simply enforces current laws without the commonplace discrimination, unfairness, and illegality.

The Simple, Intuitive Solution

1. Internal investigations have collapsed nationwide and ordinary public servants are the first victims. Internal promotions quietly dictate that public servants conducting internal investigations are incentivized to slow or thwart investigations. Self-preservation becomes the ultimate goal because the "investigating" superior officers are not legitimate investigators. They may be guilty of the same scandal yet as policy allows them to act as investigators, they are are automatically cleared; they may have negligent oversight and a true investigation would expose their own failures; they may fear the perpetrator; they may depend on perpetrators’ allies for day-to-day work. In deeply humiliating scandals, superior officer “investigators” become an anti-transparency, anti-rakyat, anti-justice weapon that easily hands perpetrators get out of jail free card. 
2. A Public Ombudsman, with external investigators, drops these calcified enforcement structures. It allows rapid, independent, and transparent enforcement of current laws and regulations. With enforceable timelines and independence from the Executive, we can reset Malaysia’s future. And, a Public Ombudsman reduces burdens on politicians, the Courts, and the public service to self-investigate or “interfere” in complex matters without access nor efficiency. No more pleading on social media, hoping our injustices can get viral first.
3. Today, politicians have built ineffective, third-rate band-aids, commonly referred as "the proper channels"–to hide and / or prop-up abuse of power in the public service. We have “external” commissions, committees, oversight boards, compromised “enforcement” agencies, constituency allocations, and even the common refrain “go summon the government to claim your rights”. To the rich and powerful, the Courts are accessible. That is why most politicians and elites have little urgency with Malaysia’s failures; they have always had independent investigations & independent enforcement.

Not Another Bucket With Holes

1. Imagine Malaysia’s enforcement mechanisms as buckets filled by whistleblowers, witnesses, evidence, and victims. If a bucket is filled, disciplinary or criminal action is taken against all responsible. However, Malaysia’s buckets have holes from the factory, e.g., MACC Act, Whistleblower Protection Act, Child Act. All have severe, fatal weaknesses: Executive appointments, no enforceable timelines, no vicarious liability, easily stymied by the Attorney General, themselves also institutions of internal investigations and enforcement, no restorative provisions, and worst yet: weak transparency.
2. For all whistleblowers, depending on political appointees for protection has become an ignoble and humiliating reality. Instead, a Public Ombudsman with full investigative powers including evidence seizure, raids, witnesses, whistleblower protection, and time-limited demands is a robust, durable, and reliable institution. Its appointments are made outside the Executive Branch, its finances are firewalled against political interference, its design is transparent–these are obvious solutions, yet have never been implemented by our own “representatives” across decades and coalitions. 
3. A Public Ombudsman ensures triage, whereby the worst affected receive the most attention instead of simply those with the loudest microphones at the largest media outlets. A Public Ombudsman ensures restorative justice, so that victims are compensated and not mere witnesses, with fair restitution. A Public Ombudsman can take punitive (compounds) or disciplinary action with final resolutions made public for key oversight by media & CSOs. A Public Ombudsman can even summon the Government in public interest litigation.

Make History: Special Powers

1. One key trait of Malaysia’s “internal regulatory attempts” is their rapid expiration date: they launch with obvious defects and limited powers. That leads to public failures and inevitable disregard for the institution. Right on cue, when corrupt public servants realise they can violate the law and still remain as public servants, abuse of power becomes national culture. 
2. Thus, a Public Ombudsman must be prepared to triage our worst failures. First, it must have an unimpeachable and aggressive whistleblower protection unit. Without whistleblowers, there is no ground truth on all policies and Ministries, nor any urgency or even measurement of reform. All disciplinary / civil / criminal cases are jeopardised without this whistleblower protection. Next, the Public Ombudsman must have a public interest litigation unit to file summons against systematic, long-term, and / or egregious misconduct by the Executive Branch. B40 communities should not need to fundraise litigation to force our taxpayer-fed government to follow our laws, as executed by 1.6 million public officers. 
3. Further, the Ministry of Education presents an enormous legal liability to the Government with over 10,000 schools and yet it is one of the most corrupt in some states. Further, children are a protected class (the Child Act) in Malaysia and any abuse of power can create generational poverty, generational failures, and generational instability. Thus, a specific unit that investigates misconduct in schools with child-sensitive units is an absolute requirement.

Justice Creates Unforgettable Legacies of Unity

1. Malaysia’s humble citizens are pining for justice, accountability, and an honest system. Decades of misconduct, “internal enforcement”, and humiliating scandals have yielded a people quite afraid and quite distrustful of “our” government. Many Malaysians are victims, yet too afraid to come forward to tell their story after the government has silenced protests, silenced whistleblowers, and protected the corrupt. But, in reality, all of Malaysia is ready for the downfall of the corrupt: it is the national dream of Malaysians. Why should Malaysia not be a leader in anti-corruption?
2. A Public Ombudsman then highlights our homegrown heroes by removing the shackles of the “anti-corruption actors" that appear unwilling to make a fiercely public and transparent case for justice. For example, shouldn’t teacher whistleblowers be provided state honours? Shouldn’t misconduct be publicly exposed in the media after disciplinary action has been taken? Shouldn’t documentaries be made about the rakyat tearing down government corruption? Shouldn’t we demand the Ombudsman to be a truly public institution?
3. Some Public Ombudsman offices internationally become more popular than the governments they monitor. That is because they worked to make justice the default, not the promise.

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