She said this was to enable more detailed discussions to be carried out.

“The cabinet members probably have their own opinions, maybe in terms of government policy, such as looking into the aspects of penalty or compensation payment.

“Once we reach a consensus in the cabinet, I hope we can take the new law to the next parliamentary session,” she said at a media conference after launching the Legal Aid Trust Account here today.

Present was the director-general of the Legal Aid Department Haini Hassan.

On Jan 30, Azalina announced that the government had set up a special committee to study a new law to curb incidences of fake news that could jeopardise political stability, threaten public peace and national security.

She was reported to have said that the new measure was to tackle the spread of fake news, so that members of the public would be more responsible when it comes to churning out, spreading or sharing unconfirmed news to ensure national security continued to be preserved.

Commenting further, Azalina said the special committee would hold a second technical meeting tomorrow to look at the draft of the new law, read together with existing laws.

“At the technical meeting tomorrow, representatives from the relevant agencies, including from the Attorney-General’s Chambers, will look at the existing laws.

“A bit of the new law is present in the Penal Code, a bit in the Computer Crime Act 1997 and the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998,” she said.

Special committee to draft law on fake news holds first meeting