INTI Orion.com

By SHEHAN AK

Law is more than just a legal set of rules, it is the very foundation that society rests on, the embodiment of the human conscience and as such it can be easily said that all laws affect college students because all laws affect all men. Obviously though some laws affect college students more than others, with the passing of the Universities and University College Act in 1971 which delegated the authority to all bodies of higher learning to create and enforce their rules, mere school rules transformed into a much more binding set of rules recognizable by law. There was a lot of opposition to the passing of this law and rightly so, it took away a huge chunk of the basic human rights for college students which was:
• the right to a fair trial,
• the right to form associations,
• the freedom of speech and,
• the right to be judged by their peers.

The constitutional right to an education doesn’t play a huge part as it may seem to at a first glance, powerful words but not much of a meaning behind it, not to a college student in any case. The right to an education largely concerns a basic primary education but on a constitutional sense perhaps the greatest right that affects a college student is his/her right to the freedom of expression, Article number 10 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia states that:
a. every citizen has the right to freedom of speech and expression
b. all citizens have the right to assemble peaceably and without arms
c. all citizens have the right to form association

However an additional clause, “(3) Restrictions on the right to form associations conferred by paragraph (c) of clause (1) may also be imposed by any law relating to labour or education,” causes the entire article to disintegrate, once again the Universities and University College Act of 1971 comes in to play which states in Article 15 that students have no right to associate with either a political party or a trade union thus effectively cancelling the right to form an association. The said act also gives the head authority of the University or University College the arbitrary power to fine students as well as impose any other punishment deemed fit by them generally without a trial. So if you don’t see me for a while, you’ll know what happened.