KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said today acknowledged public concern about the accountability of the Attorney General (AG) which is a post that currently carries out the twin roles of giving legal advice to the government and carrying out prosecutions.
Azalina, who is the minister in charge of law and institutional reforms, said this is why the government is working on fine-tuning the Bill for the proposed split of the AG and Public Prosecutor (PP) roles before it is brought back to Parliament again in June.
“I am not going to deny that there is a big trust deficit today in reference to certain position. I’m not talking about political position. I’m talking about certain posts,” she said in a press conference at the Parliament building here, later alluding to the AG post.
Azalina said the public, MPs and she herself are all concerned about the accountability of the AG’s post.
“So we are not going to sugar coat that everything is in a perfect condition.
“No, we accept as MPs, we accept that we have to improve things for this nation. And we hope this committee can find that compromise and solution to take us to this split which is going to be a new approach for this country, splitting the Attorney General and the the Public Prosecutor,” she said.
Azalina was speaking after she had chaired a parliamentary special select committee’s (PSSC) first meeting on the Bill for the proposed separation of the AG and PP roles.
Azalina explained that the law minister currently only answers on behalf of the AG in Parliament, and that this is not a “full process of outright accountability to explain”.
Under the proposed splitting of the dual roles, Azalina said it would be clear that the AG is the adviser to the government, and that the PP that prosecutes on behalf of the government would be “an independent personality” acting without fear or favour.
“No wishy-washy about it,” she said when describing the expected outright separate roles of the AG and PP.
Asked if both the AG and PP could in the future come to Parliament to be accountable to answer questions, Azalina said this is still “premature” for her to comment on this, but also said: “But right now, I can say with the split, the Attorney General, we hope can come to Parliament. Our assumption, the Attorney General should come to Parliament.”
As for whether the PP would also be expected to come to Parliament in the future, Azalina said: “That one is still premature. I cannot respond yet.”
The Bill in its current form did not say whether the AG and PP would have to come to Parliament to answer questions from federal lawmakers.
The Bill for the AG-PP split was tabled in the Dewan Rakyat for first reading on February 23, and was tabled for second reading on March 3 but was not debated on as it was referred to a bipartisan PSSC for it to propose changes to the Bill.
Azalina said this PSSC is planning to meet five more times (April 9, 16, 27; May 4 and 18) to go through the entire Bill in detail, and that this committee would also be inviting legal experts, academics and non-governmental organisations to give their views on the Bill.
When asked why the engagement process is being done after the Bill’s first tabling, Azalina said this is because both opposition and government MPs have said they need more time to study and understand this Bill which is quite technical in nature and they also wanted to have more say on it.
Having said that “this government will listen”, Azalina said the government is allowing this approach of getting MPs to understand and have a consensus on the proposed Bill which involves amendments to the Federal Constitution.
“Because this split is a historical split, and it will be recorded in the Hansard. It must and it should be done properly. And everybody is on board to understand,” she said, adding that this is also to enable a proper and knowledgeable debate by political party representatives or leaders because of the “historical” nature of the AG-PP split.
Among other things, Azalina said the proposed AG-PP split is a reform agenda promised by the Madani government, and that the government is committed to listen to the views of both opposition and government MPs through the PSSC to get their support for the reform.
“So there’s no such thing as us forcing. So the government MPs can also have their views, because the party representatives are here. So I admit the government cannot be in a position that the government knows everything. So we must listen,” she said.
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