A/HRC/44/40/Add.3 like stateless people and refugees, are not able to access legal aid provided under the Legal Aid Act. When asked about the socioeconomic background of the people in prison, Home Affairs officials said they did not collect data, but that “most of them are low income, with [only] primary education.” Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • The Malaysian Prison department has no jurisdiction whatsoever for matters regarding legal proceeding before a prisoner is sent to prison for the first time. After the prisoner is sent to the prison, the authority also has no power to interfere in the exclusive relationship between a lawyer and a prisoner regarding legal proceeding and other legal matters except for prison safety. • However, prison authority has provided every prisoner the right to access/choose their legal representative if they require them: (i) For appeal (ii) Any Legal proceeding • Legal Advice and Legal representation are provided by three different legal aid bodies in Malaysia. The first body is the Legal Aid Department that is funded by the government and handles certain criminal and civil cases. The second is the Bar Council and they have offices across the different states of Malaysia. The Bar Council is privately funded by members of the bar and provide legal aid for arrears of family law, employment law and criminal law. The third body is specifically for criminal cases. This is known as the National Legal Aid Foundation and it started operating in 2012 to close the gap between the Legal Aid and the Bar Council. Those who are unable to afford legal representatives will be referred to legal aid committee. However the criteria for eligibility are solely determined by the committee. • Every request by their (prisoners) lawyers are facilitated accordingly. For prisoners who can’t afford to hire a lawyer, opportunity is given to meet Malaysian Legal Aid and National Legal Aid Foundation (NLAF) who visits prison. • Application for NLAF: No of Application Prison Sungai Buloh Prison 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 (Aug) 485 449 532 816 471 Paragraph 48 Poverty is, in effect, criminalized by the Destitute Persons Act, which allows authorities to take into their charge people deemed destitute and penalizes resistance with up to three months imprisonment. According to civil society groups, the Act has been used to detain homeless people without trial. Various post-conviction consequences, such as bars on educational loans and civil service jobs, as well as discrimination by employers against people with criminal records, mean that people who have been imprisoned have fewer education and work opportunities. Comments from the Government of Malaysia: • The spirit of Destitute Persons Act 1977 [Act 183] is not to criminalize a destitute person but to provide care and rehabilitation of destitute persons and for the control of vagrancy. In order to control the vagrancy, any person who refuses to be taken or offers any resistance will be charged under Section 11 and on conviction, will be sent to a welfare home or to imprisonment. • However, the real situation is that the destitute person who is charged under this section will be sent to a welfare home as the main goal to provide protection to them. 24