KUALA LUMPUR, March 26  ― DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang demanded today a reason for inaction against minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said beyond a verbal reprimand from the Speaker for usurping his authority in the Dewan Rakyat this week.

The Gelang Patah MP said her conduct in deciding there was sub judice in answering the opposition’s questions surrounding the RM2.6 billion political donation to the prime minister before Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia had ruled on it was a serious violation of parliamentary privilege.

“This is a serious violation of parliamentary privilege by Azalina not for one day, but for a whole week,” said Lim who is currently under a six-month suspension that started last October after he accused the Speaker of interference with the bipartisan Public Accounts Committee’s investigation into state-owned 1Malaysia Development Berhad.

“Why has she not been referred to the Committee of Privileges for such grave violation of parliamentary privilege and ordered to answer all parliamentary questions which she had rejected on the ground of sub judice arising from the Bar Council’s suit against the Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali?”

He said the sub judice rule is to protect the courts from parliamentary interference in accordance with the principles of democracy and was not a “convenient device” for ministers to escape answering questions of public interest.

He maintained that the opposition’s questions on the political donation by a foreign power were important to get clarification on the different versions that had been provided by various ministers and the Attorney-General who has called a halt to further investigations into the issue.

Azalina who is minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of parliamentary affairs earned a rebuke from Pandikar last Thursday for “usurping” his authority after she refused to answer the opposition’s questions on the RM2.6 billion political donation without first seeking his approval.

The Pengerang MP defended herself, saying that she had made the decision under the advisement of the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) as “all answers will be sub judice.”

The advice from the AG’s chambers came, she said, after the Malaysian Bar filed a judicial review against the Attorney-General’s decision to close investigations on the transfers of RM2.6 billion and funds from SRC International to the prime minister’s accounts.

However, Pandikar clarified that it was the Speaker’s duty to declare a question sub judice or not.

In a later statement, Azalina asserted that the government had already provided six responses in Parliament regarding the matter before the filing of the judicial review.