Holding the executive accountable — Marcus Lee Min Lun

SEPTEMBER 13 — I stumbled across the book How Parliament Works by Robert Rogers and Rhodri Walters over the weekend. I had a good read. This book is good in the sense that it explains all about the parliament of the United Kingdom in a simple and straightforward manner.

While reading it, the discussion on “parliamentary select committees” interests me a lot. I was astonished by the operation of select committees in the UK. Since we don’t really utilise select committees here in Malaysia, I assume most Malaysian don’t really know much about select committees.

I didn’t know that select committees are actually powerful tools that parliament can employ in holding the executive accountable for matters on administration and government expenditure.

Allow me to share a little more. In the UK, There are 18 departmental committees, which systematically scrutinise each government departments (If you translate this to Malaysia, it is like one committee scrutinising one ministry).

Also, there are five cross-cutting committees such as Public Accounts Committee that scrutinise government actions that involve most of the departments. Then there are internal committees that look after the operation of the House of Commons. All these committees are well-supported by permanent staff and part-time “specialist advisers.”

Not all committees are chaired by government members. For example, the Public Accounts Committee (which is very important) is currently chaired by an opposition member from the Labour Party. These select committees can hold public inquiries. They have the power to compel any government member including high-ranked public officials to attend the inquiries.

Moreover, these public inquiries are broadcasted live on TV, and similar recordings are available online. So you can actually grab a cup of coffee, sit down and watch these officials being grilled by the committee members. If you are keen on reading, you can go online and read the published transcripts of the oral evidence given by witnesses.

Every year, more than a thousand meetings are held by parliamentary committees, including approximately 500 public evidence hearings.

I think there is a great deal of transparency and accountability in the UK system of parliamentary committees. The doctrine of separation of powers is in place; the UK Parliament is effective at holding the executive to account in a sophisticated system of checks and balances.

Sadly, in Malaysia, parliament fails to hold the executive accountable. The questioning and debating sessions in our parliament have been proven to be ineffective; our Members of Parliament (“MPs”) are more inclined towards scolding each other and call it a day.

Till date, the Malaysian Parliament has only formed a few special select committees, such as Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity and Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform (some committees did not produce any reports; this is also an issue of accountability.)

I don’t know how busy the local MPs are. I was told that MPs are always attending functions like weddings and funerals; they are even expected to contribute to the funeral costs. MPs have to fork out another sum of money to hire assistants in making sure that the “service centres” are functioning in their respective constituencies. Most MPs seem to be more interested in gaining political mileage.

In Malaysia, the key committees are chaired by the government members. Our Public Accounts Committee is chaired by a Barisan Nasional (ruling coalition) MP. In my opinion, chairpersons of committees are very important and influential, he may affect the outcomes/reports of the committees tremendously; it is therefore preferable for an opposition member to chair the Public Accounts Committee.

The select committees in Malaysia are not supported by experienced and permanent staff.

Perhaps this was the reason why the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform had relied on the Election Commission in producing recommendations, although the Election Commission has been quite infamous for its incapability in initiating improvements of the electoral system.

Judging from how our government ministries and agencies maintain their websites, it is common sense that recordings and transcripts of public inquiries, if any, are nowhere to be found online.

Clearly, there is a stark difference between the UK Parliament and the Malaysian Parliament.

I think there is a pressing need to improve our parliament’s institutional capacity. We should learn from other jurisdictions and import their good practices. Parliamentary reform is needed in making sure that parliament is holding the Executive accountable.

It is needed to further uphold the doctrine of separation of powers in Malaysia. And parliamentary reform is not possible if our MPs are still having the same attitude, mindset, and level of integrity.

The Malaysian Parliament still has a long way to go.

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