KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 — The duty of a Dewan Rakyat Speaker is to maintain the decorum of the Lower House of Parliament, Tan Sri Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof said in an interview with Malaysiakini.
The retired judge who served as Speaker from 2018 to 2020 said the job did not include defending members of the Cabinet or deputy ministers.
“As a Speaker, I did not jump into the arena. I did not defend ministers or deputy ministers or, for that matter, the prime minister.
“The Speaker is not there to defend the Cabinet; the speaker is there to maintain the decorum of the House.
“To act as an impartial arbiter, to give everyone time to speak and debate according to the rules,” he was quoted as saying in the interview published today.
Ariff made the remark when asked to assess his successor Tan Sri Azhar Azizan Harun.
He did not give an assessment but instead shared what he did not do as a Speaker.
Ariff, who is the first Speaker to have been removed by force from office, had called for parliamentary reforms to be made.
Among the proposed reforms that have been making headlines, Ariff said he was looking forward to seeing the introduction of the anti-party hopping law.
In the interview, Ariff said institutional reforms were needed to give Malaysia political stability.
The author of newly released book Parliament, Unexpected also said Malaysians deserve better political leaders.
“I think we deserve more. That is what I am trying to say between the lines of the closing chapter [of the book]. We deserve more.
“We do not deserve the current political condition in Malaysia. I think we are too smart to allow this sort of thing to be tolerated to no end.
“We deserve expertise, leadership and statesmanship instead of mediocrity and power hunger,” he told Malaysiakini.
Earlier in January, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the new law against switching between political parties is expected to be tabled in Parliament in the upcoming sitting later this month.
The tabling of the Bill would be met much earlier than the initial July timeline given.
Wan Junaidi also said that this is in line with the prime minister’s recommendation to expedite the Bill.
