Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission: Whither Is It Bound?

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Zainal Amin Ayub, Harlida Abdul Wahab

Abstract

Integrity is a wide concept that involves values, morals, norms, and behaviours. It is relative with individuals, organisations, and functions. The integrity discourse is discussed not without ethics, corruption, and good governance. Integrity is indeed one of the factors that shape the success and progress of the nation. A society with honesty, strong moral principles and high integrity avoids malpractice, rebuffs corruption, rejects abuse of power, avoids fraud and even any unethical behaviour. Often, integrity is associated with governance, government or government agencies, and policy. As the backbone of the government and effective governance, high integrity of civil servants is crucial for country’s economic growth and development. Ironically, the enforcement agency, that functions to enforce legal compliant in the community, is identified as notorious and vulnerable with likelihood of malpractice as corruption and abuse of power. Accordingly, the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC), the independent body, was established to regulate integrity and mandated with handling complaints and investigating misconduct cases against the enforcement officers in the agencies under its control. Despite this, there have been debates to replace EAIC with other independent body in recent years. The question therefore arises as to what extent EAIC has effectively functioned. This article aims to study the functions and governance of EAIC. Adopting a doctrinal research method through library research approach, this work builds a systematic explanation of the legal problems by considering the data from EAIC annual report the complaints and investigation papers recorded. Lack of good governance, dearth of workforce and weakness in enforcement are probable answers to the trend and statistics of complaints thus suggesting ineffectiveness of EAIC. On this point, the structure, governance, and function of EAIC shall be reinforced and reviewed to achieve its primary objective as an oversight body of integrity in the enforcement agencies.

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How to Cite
Ayub, Harlida Abdul Wahab, Z. A. . (2022). Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission: Whither Is It Bound? . BiLD Law Journal, 7(1), 25–36. Retrieved from https://bildbd.com/index.php/blj/article/view/148
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