DNA Act to nail Anwar?

DNA = Don’t Nail Anwar?

The DNA Bill was passed in Parliament recently amid protest by the Opposition. Pakatan fears that the law would provide ammunition to send Anwar back to jail again. Could that be the reason why PKR has Zaid Ibrahim as ’substitute’ now? Politics aside, we all know there is an advantage of collecting DNA samples and test; using it to identify criminals. Popular crime series such as “CSI” and “Law and Order” make solving crimes look easy – particularly with DNA evidence. In reality judges, prosecutors and defence counsels sometimes gloss over the possibility of lab mistakes and mixed evidence, which can lead to false positives and land innocent people in prison.

Although there are privacy issues need to resolve, I do not see what public harm is if DNA records are kept. Perhaps a question of how safe and reliable is the databank or the possibility of any inaccuracy. Some critics say analogies to a genetic fingerprint are misleading. Therefore the argument by Sivarasa that DNA evidence should not be a conclusive evidence but a corroborative one, can be considered if there is genuine allegation of fabrication.

To me, at the end of the day, it is not so much a question of whether the law is fair or not or rather one understands the technicality but how to interpret reported matches – beyond reasonable doubt.