1. The federal and state constitutions establish a constitutional monarchy and a Westminster model executive. So although executive power is stipulated as vested in the King or the Sultan, his role is largely ceremonial except in some specified matters (such as matters of Islam, appointment of the PM and the MB in certain carefully circumscribed situations).

2. Matters relating to the administration of the federal or state government are the sole preserve of the Cabinet (for Federal) and the Executive Council (for State).

3. The Federal Constitution was further amended in 1992 to restrict the power of the King; it clarified that his role in relation to the administration of the government was nominal. Where it was provided that he was to act on the advice of the cabinet, he had no option but to do so. In other words the government ran the administration. The King’s role was purely formal.

4. The Federal Constitution obliges all states to incorporate this “essential provision” in their state constitutions. If they do not, the Federal Parliament can compel them to do so.

5. The limited role of the King/Sultan is ‘to be consulted, to encourage and to warn’ as is stated in The Proclamation of Constitutional Principles’ introduced in 1992 during a controversy over the powers of the Rulers.

6. Can a state enactment require the appointment of members of a board administering affairs of state to be made by the Sultan acting on the advice of the state Executive Council (ExCo)?

This is the limited role of the Sultan now proposed. (See my earlier article: ‘The Sultan, the State Administration and the Constitution’.)

7. All appointments will in fact be appointments made by the state ExCo. In the constitutional arrangement outlined earlier, the Sultan cannot refuse the ExCo’s appointments.

8. What then is the purpose of including a role for the Sultan in making and revoking appointments to the board, including that of the Chief Executive?

9. The former PM Tun Mahathir has expressed disquiet that in the context of Malay culture, the ruler commands implicit obeisance. He opined: ‘This is Malay custom. If the sultan says something, it must be followed. I am worried that it will not be the MB advising the sultan, but the sultan advising him.”

10. This is wise counsel — from a former PM who initiated the 1992 amendments to the Federal Constitution to obviate such problems in the future.

11. Indeed the situations requiring the formal appointment by the King ‘on the advice’ of the cabinet are specified in the Federal Constitution. These relate to the appointment of judges, the Election Commission, the Attorney General and such like.

12. Apart from the appointment of the state secretary, the state legal adviser and the state financial officer on the advice of the MB, there is no provision in the Johore State Constitution vesting the power of appointment in the Sultan. In other words, it is not envisaged that he will assume even this formal role in the state administration.

13. Significantly, aside from a general provision for the state’s executive authority to be expressed to be taken in the ruler’s name (a carry-over from the 1948 Johore Agreement), there is no specific provision which requires the formal appointment by the Sultan of members of a board carrying out general administrative functions — such as under the proposed bill.

14. To provide for this in this bill may well be the slippery slope leading ultimately to the interference in the running of the affairs of a state by the ruler.

15. Is not then the integrity of the constitutional monarchy institution in our democratic set up better safeguarded by eschewing all references to the sultan in this proposed bill – especially in the light of the public anxiety?

* Gurdial Singh Nijar is a law professor at Law Faculty, Universiti Malaya.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or organisation and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.