COMMENT | The parliamentary special select committee must respond urgently to the Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD)’s global ratings and assessment regarding Malaysia’s Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill 2026.

Considering that the CLD’s review found the bill extremely weak and ranked it among the worst in the world, we call on the PSSC to take urgent action to bring it in line with international human rights law and standards.

The CLD assessment and rating, published on Aug 12, scored Malaysia’s FOI bill a dismal 47 out of 150 points (29 percent), based on the CLD’s Right to Information (RTI) rating indicators. This score places Malaysia 137th out of 142 countries worldwide that have RTI or FOI laws.

This finding reinforces the serious concerns our organisations raised, and it is evident that the FOI bill...