Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak will get sweeping security powers on Monday amid planned protests calling for his resignation over allegations that millions of dollars from a state fund wound up in his personal bank account.
The new National Security Council (NSC) Act, which comes into force on August 1, allows Najib to designate any area as a "security area", where he can deploy forces to search any individual, vehicle or premise without a warrant.
It also allows investigators to dispense with formal inquests into killings by the police or armed forces in those areas.
Najib's ruling coalition promoted the law as a means to counter threats to security in predominantly Muslim Malaysia, which has long dealt with a fringe element of radical Islamists.
But critics say the law's expansive powers threaten human rights and democracy in the emerging nation, and could now be used to silence critics of the One Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund scandal.
"The concern among the civil society and others is because the NSC can be used against anything that the government is unhappy with," said Wan Saiful Wan Jan, chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs.
"It does give the PM a huge amount of power to declare emergency zones...," he said.
The law was passed on the last day of the legislation session in December, surprising the opposition, as Najib came under mounting criticism over the multi-billion dollar scandal surrounding the 1MDB fund, which he founded and whose advisory council he chaired until recently.
The law was enacted without the customary royal assent from Malaysia's king, who had asked for some changes.
Pressure on Najib to step down mounted last week after the US Justice Department filed civil lawsuits alleging that over $US3.5 billion ($A4.66 billion) was misappropriated from 1MDB.
The lawsuits seek to seize more than $US1 billion ($A1.33 billion) of assets allegedly siphoned from the fund, saying they were part of "an international conspiracy to launder money".
The civil lawsuits do not name Najib, but refer to a high-ranking government official who received over $US700 million ($A932.77 million) of the misappropriated funds.
A source familiar with the investigations told Reuters the official, named as Malaysian Official 1 in the lawsuits, was Najib.
Najib, who has denied any wrongdoing, has said Malaysia will cooperate in international investigations of the 1MDB case.
