Musa said there was an urgent need to amend Sections 4 and 15B of Poca, after a Federal Court ruling on the section meant that police could not use the law anymore.

In April, the apex court ruled that the sections were unconstitutional as they intruded into the judicial domain and violated the doctrine of separation of powers.

It had allowed a habeas corpus appeal by a man who was allegedly involved in organised criminal activities.

Section 4 lays down the procedures for magistrates to grant remand orders to police, while Section 15B, which is an ouster clause, restricts judges from inquiring into the grounds for detention.

“Police were asked to halt enforcing Poca. I think this is something that the home ministry needs to review in order to return the power to the police,” Musa told a forum at the police training centre.

“Police need the power to carry out their duties, especially to probe organised crime involving violence, underground gangs, and human trafficking.”

However, he also advised police not to abuse their power should Poca be “returned” to them, so that the general public could trust them.

Criminologist Mohammad Rahim Kamaluddin said Poca was needed as a preventive law because of the complexity of certain crimes which required extensive investigations.

He said there were criminals who carefully orchestrated their crimes and evaluated the risks involved, and the absence of a preventive law like Poca would “give them more courage” to commit crime due to reduced risks.

Ishak Mohd Yusof, former deputy chief in the Attorney-General’s Chambers’ prosecution unit, agreed with the panellists, saying it was hard to catch criminal masterminds without the preventive law.

“We don’t want to just penetrate the outer layer, we want to penetrate the first layer on the inside to identify the main perpetrator,” he said.

Bukit Aman criminal investigation department director Jalil Hassan said police would ensure that there was no abuse of power and that human rights were upheld in enforcing Poca.