Access as a right: How Malaysia’s disability law works — Mohd Hishamudin Md Yunus and JJ Chan

OCTOBER 15 — Education, work, healthcare and an ordinary journey outside the home all turn on access. What does Malaysia’s disability law say about them, where can a person turn and what happens after an injury?

On a Saturday morning in February 2025 a blind man fell from the platform at the Titiwangsa LRT station in Kuala Lumpur and was killed by a moving train.

Section 27 of the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 gave him the right to use public transport on an equal basis with everyone else.

Within weeks, Suhakam had called for the Act to be given enforcement mechanisms. That is one way a right written in an Act meets the world. There is another way, and it happens every day.

A person who comes home from hospital with a disability they did not have before finds that the house has changed without anyone touching it.

The three steps at the door are now a wall. The bus to the rehabilitation clinic is now an issue, and so is the job. The family knows what treatment is needed; what is harder to find out is what the law says about life around the treatment.

These are also the everyday questions of people who have had a disability since birth or childhood: whether they can study, work, get information and take part. The Act of 2008, the Akta OKU, is the law that addresses them.

Malaysia had 805,509 registered persons with disabilities in 2024, or 2.4 per cent of the population, based on the Department of Statistics’ count.

Registration is voluntary, so the true number is likely to be larger. The government is reviewing the Act. This article explains the law we have.

The author argues that Malaysia’s disability law recognises broad rights to access, education, employment and services, but weak enforcement mechanisms still limit how effectively those rights are realised. — Pexels pic

What the Act says

The Act came into force on 7 July 2008. It starts with a simple idea. Disability is not only the impairment a person has, but the barriers, in buildings, in attitudes, in the way things are done, that prevent that person taking part in ordinary life. Removing barriers helps a person take part.

The Act’s definition covers long-term physical, mental, intellectual and sensory impairments. Disability is broader than a wheelchair and is not always obvious.

The Act sets up a National Council for Persons with Disabilities, chaired by the Minister. It provides for registration and the Kad OKU, which is conclusive proof that its holder is registered. And in Part IV it sets out the rights.

The three steps at the door are now a wall. The bus to the rehabilitation clinic is now an issue, and so is the job. The family knows what treatment is needed; what is harder to find out is what the law says about life around the treatment.

These are also the everyday questions of people who have had a disability since birth or childhood: whether they can study, work, get information and take part. The Act of 2008, the Akta OKU, is the law that addresses them.

Malaysia had 805,509 registered persons with disabilities in 2024, or 2.4 per cent of the population, based on the Department of Statistics’ count.

Registration is voluntary, so the true number is likely to be larger. The government is reviewing the Act. This article explains the law we have.

The card and the rights do different things. The rights belong to people with disabilities as such, and the Act is about more than registration.

Access in everyday life

Sections 26 and 27 give the right to use public buildings, facilities, services and transport on an equal basis with everyone else.

They require the government and the providers to design them on the principle of universal design: places and services that everyone can use, as far as possible, without special adaptation.

A step-free entrance serves the wheelchair user, the elderly and the parent with a pushchair alike. It was this right that was in question at Titiwangsa.

Section 28 provides that persons with disabilities are not to be excluded from the general education system because of disability.

Education providers must make reasonable accommodation. The adjustments a particular person needs that do not impose a disproportionate or undue burden, in infrastructure, equipment, teaching materials or methods.

Universal design is about access for everyone.

Reasonable accommodation is about one person’s needs. An accessible classroom may still need particular materials for the student who cannot see the board.

Section 29 gives the right of access to employment on an equal basis, with just conditions, equal pay for work of equal value and safe working conditions.

Employers are to assess a person’s abilities properly and provide a suitable place of work. “Employer” expressly includes the government.

Section 30 covers information and communication: accessible formats, Malaysia Sign Language, Braille.

A person may get through an office door and still be unable to use its service, if the form comes only in print. The Act also recognises access to cultural life, recreation and sport, and to help in cases of emergency.

These duties are not all worded the same way. Reasonable accommodation is an express duty in education; employers, transport operators and providers of information have duties of their own.

When disability follows an injury

Not every person with disabilities was born with one. Many acquire it: on the road, at work, through illness and age, and some in hospital, when treatments go wrong, as when a birth injury leaves a child with cerebral palsy, a stroke is missed, or an operation damages a nerve.

For that last group, the law of medical negligence has an answer, and it is a precise one. An adverse outcome is not in itself negligence. A patient who proves that a doctor or a hospital fell below the standard of care, and that the lapse caused the injury, recovers damages.

Those damages may cover the cost of care, equipment, therapy and adaptations at home for the years ahead, the earnings lost, and a sum for the injury itself. The award is assessed once, as a lump sum, and it closes the case.

It does not, however, open the door. A judgment can fund the wheelchair and the ramp at home, but it cannot build the one at the station, lower the bus or persuade an employer.

Whether the claim succeeds, fails or is never brought, the need for an accessible station, workplace and service thus remains.

The rights that answer that need are the rights in the 2008 Act, and they do not depend on proving that anyone was at fault. Registration, too, is based on disability and the applicable registration criteria, not on how the disability came about.

Section 33 deals with habilitation and rehabilitation, the Act’s words for enabling a person with a disability, whether from birth or later, to attain and keep their full physical, mental, social and working ability and to take part fully in life. Services are to begin early and rest on an assessment of the individual’s needs and strengths.

Section 34 is about support at home and in the community, and section 35 about access to health. Read together, they say that life with disability, whether from birth or acquired later, goes beyond treatment.

Compensation in personal injury cases can help meet individual needs. The Act’s rights address access to the services, support and opportunities needed to take part in everyday life.

How the rights work

The Act declares rights and provides oversight.  It does not contain a general prohibition of disability discrimination.

The National Council established under the Act oversees the implementation of the national policy, may require ministries and agencies to report and explain, and is to recommend changes to the law.

Some of the rights are qualified, namely, access to public facilities is subject to situations that may endanger a disabled person’s safety, and the government’s obligations take its resources into account.

Although the Act provides no dedicated procedure for enforcing its access rights, the ordinary law still stands beside it.

A public-authority decision may be open to judicial review, depending on its legal basis and the circumstances, and other laws carry duties of their own.

Where to turn

For a person with disabilities, then, the picture today looks like this. Registration is with the Department of Social Welfare. The Kad OKU supports applications for the government’s assistance schemes, each with conditions of its own.

A building without access can be taken up with the local authority, which applies the building laws in force in that state. Those laws require access and facilities for persons with disabilities in the buildings they cover.

Although the relevant employment-discrimination provisions do not expressly mention disability, an employee can take a discrimination dispute to the Labour Department.

Where discrimination results in dismissal, the unfair-dismissal process through the Industrial Relations Department may lead to the Industrial Court. An injury caused by negligence is a claim in the courts.

A complaint that human rights have been infringed can be brought to Suhakam. It may inquire, call witnesses and take evidence. If the inquiry finds an infringement, Suhakam may refer the matter to the relevant authority or person with recommendations for action.

The recipient must inform Suhakam of any action taken. Suhakam cannot inquire into a matter that is before a court or has been finally determined by one, and  it cannot award compensation or make binding orders as a court can.

The Constitution, the Convention and Suhakam

The Federal Constitution’s guarantee of equality before the law and equal protection of the law applies to persons with disabilities as to everyone.

Although disability is not one of the five grounds specified in Article 8(2), the courts have recognised that Article 8(1) also addresses discrimination on other grounds. A person alleging disability discrimination by a public authority may therefore rely on that general guarantee, subject to the applicable constitutional tests.

Malaysia ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010. In our law, a convention binds the government internationally, but ratification does not by itself give it force as domestic law.

The 2008 Act reflects some of the Convention’s principles. Where the Act is silent or unclear, a court may use the Convention to help interpret it consistently with Malaysia’s international obligations. Clear Malaysian law still governs.

Suhakam’s statutory work is to promote awareness of human rights, to advise the government on legislation and to inquire into complaints. Since its Act was amended in 2024, at least one of its Commissioners must be a person with disabilities.

Puan Bathmavathi Krishnan, a former Senator and an advocate for persons with disabilities of forty-five years’ standing, took her seat in 2025.

The government’s review of the 2008 Act is under way. In June 2026 it told the Convention’s Conference of States Parties that consultations to review and strengthen the Act were continuing.

Its National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights 2025–2030, built on Suhakam’s earlier framework, includes a review of the Act against the Convention, particularly on protection against discrimination, together with work on accommodation at the workplace and access to employment.

The person at the door, and the person who has stood at that door all their life, have the same rights and the same places to take them.

The Act of 2008 wrote those rights down. Knowing where they are written, and which door to knock on, is the beginning of using them.

* Datuk Seri Mohd Hishamudin Md Yunus is Chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) and a former Judge of the Court of Appeal of Malaysia. Adj Prof JJ Chan is a Barrister-at-Law of the Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, London, an Advocate & Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya, and an Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Law, Universiti Malaya. He specialises in financial lines, medical negligence, corporate and directors’ liability, insurance/reinsurance, and Al governance risk. He also writes regularly on constitutional and public-interest matters.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.