MAY 18 — Today, a total of 220 out of 222 Members of Parliament (MP) will attend the Dewan Rakyat sitting.
The first meeting of the third session of the 14th Parliament was originally scheduled for March 9 to April 16, but was postponed to today following the Covid-19 outbreak that led to the implementation of the movement control order (MCO).
The businesses of the day will feature only the Royal address by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah for the opening of Parliament.
This has led to a legal challenge being filed against the prime minister and Dewan Rakyat speaker over limiting today’s parliamentary sitting to just the royal address.
Can Parliament be limited as such?
This is what Lady Hale, President of the Supreme Court of the UK, reading the judgement of the court together with Lord Reed, in R (on the application of Miller) v The Prime Minister; Cherry and ors v Advocate General for Scotland [2019] UKSC 41 said:
As Lord Bingham of Cornhill said in the case of Bobb v Manning [2006] UKPC 22 [on appeal from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago to the Privy Council] “the conduct of government by a Prime Minister and Cabinet collectively responsible and accountable to Parliament lies at the heart of Westminster democracy”.
“Ministers are accountable to Parliament through such mechanisms as their duty to answer Parliamentary questions and to appear before Parliamentary committees, and through Parliamentary scrutiny of the delegated legislation which ministers make. By these means, the policies of the executive are subjected to consideration by the representatives of the electorate, the executive is required to report, explain and defend its actions, and citizens are protected from the arbitrary exercise of executive power.”
“Let us remind ourselves of the foundations of our constitution. We live in a representative democracy. The House … exists because the people have elected its members …. The Government exists because it has the confidence of the House …. It has no democratic legitimacy other than that. This means that it is accountable to the House … for its actions, remembering always that the actual task of governing is for the executive and not for Parliament or the courts.”
“The first question, therefore, is whether the Prime Minister’s action [of advising the Queen to prorogue Parliament] had the effect of frustrating or preventing the constitutional role of Parliament in holding the Government to account.”
“The answer is that of course it did. This was not … normal. It prevented Parliament from carrying out its constitutional role for five out of a possible eight weeks.”
The Dewan Rakyat will next sit from July 13 to August 27, which will include the motion of thanks to the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong, debate on the royal address, bills and other government affairs and the tabling of the Twelfth Malaysia Plan (RMK-12).
It will be eight weeks away. Until then, the Dewan Rakyat will be prevented from carrying out its constitutional function of holding the Government to account, as well as the function of legislating.
Parliament and the Government are different. They have different constitutional functions. One cannot prevent or frustrate the constitutional functions of the other.
*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
