Did The Sultans and King Write Their Own Speeches?

During any special occasions be it the birthday of the rulers or whatever events that extends its invitations to the royals to attend or to officiate, the rulers would be definitely given the opportunity to give his speech to the public prior to the commencement of the occasion or event. Well, certainly it would be surely against the protocol if the invited royal subject is not provided with an opportunity to present his speech or "titah".

The question here is, did the Sultans and the King actually write their own speeches? And the subsequent question here is, did the Sultans and the King have the sufficient time to write or edit their own speeches given to the fact of their full-packed of functions and events that they need to attend or to officiate every day, every hour, every minute and every second.

So, doing all these speech writings are in fact the responsibilities of the private secretaries and press secretaries of the Sultans and the King. And the appointment of these private secretaries and press secretaries to the rulers falls under the jurisdiction of the Public Service Department (Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam) which in turns falls under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister's Department. To be clear of such condition, the Sultans and the King does not have the powers to hire, appoint or to promote their palace staffs which also include their private and press secretaries respectively.

Of recently, there are some cases which are related to criticism of the Ruler's speeches made by some people and because of that, some extreme rightist has decided to claim some credit by taking such matters seriously with reporting such criticism or whatever comments to the police reasoning that there are some elements of insults against the rulers.

Yes, we all knew that the ruler did read out their speech. But the fact that is, the speech itself was always not written by the ruler himself. Those speech are actually written by the private secretary or in his absence, the press secretary or any other persons within the palace who are being assigned to pen down the said speech for and on behalf of the ruler. So, another issue comes into question herein. Can the ruler's speech which was written by someone else be considered as a "titah" or an "order" of the ruler? Coming to the interpretation of the royal language herein, can the "titah" also consider not reflected as an "order" but more to the lighter word, "advice"?

Why do we mention such? It is because, the monarchy system in our nation today is not being constituted as the absolute monarchy of which the rulers would have the absolute powers over the executive and day to day administration of our nation or the states, but instead a constitutional monarchy one where the powers and decisions related to our nation and the state lies on the hands of the executives, parliament and the state legislative assemblies duly elected by our people.

Now coming back to the speech writings for the rulers, since their stature in our nation are merely under the role of a constitutional monarchy in accordance to our Federal Constitution, can their speeches be constituted as an "order" (titah) or "advice" (also titah). If we were to decide on using the Common Law to debate this interpretation, both subject that is. "order" and "advice" are usable based on the condition and situation of where and when did such activity has taken place or in what event.

Then, comes to the Federal Constitution, the highest written law of our nation. By this stature, the Federal Constitution reigns supreme and everybody, including the Sultans or the King are subject to it. Even our nation's renownedconstitutional expert, Professor Dr Abdul Aziz Bari had confirmed that there is nothing wrong at all for Malaysians to criticise the King's speech or questioning the results of the general elections (just because the King has given his advice on this subject in his birthday speech).

Recently, many Umno leaders and pro-Umno NGOs had deliberately slammed certain people for criticising the King's speech in the facebook and Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim for mentioning that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government had used the King's speech as an "order" to get out people to accept the results of the last month's general elections (GE13). To make things worst, these Umno leaders as well as the pro-Umno NGO leaders had made numerous police reports nationwide in order to seek action onto those who criticise and question the speech made by the King.

Let us look at the statement made by Anwar, who said that the BN government had used the King's speech to get everyone of us to accept the GE13 results. He has his facts too, just like us. The King's speech was written by the palace staff, either the private secretary or the press secretary or whoever from the palace who has been assigned to write the speech. And these subjects, private or press secretaries or their assignees are full-fledged civil servants under the jurisdiction on the Public Service Department who in turn directly reports to the Prime Minister's Department. So, whatever Anwar has mentioned, serve this purpose too, because of the fact that the palace hierarchy does not goes direct to the Sultans or the King in terms of jurisdiction and appointment.

So, to all leaders of BN, Umno and the pro-Umno NGOs, please stop making the hell of fuss over all such a small issue. You are merely trying to claim credit out of this by politicising it into an act of "treason" or "derhaka" in order to scare our people into submission. Threatening us, neither we are going to bow to your pressure or any scare tactics.

To all leaders of BN, Umno and the pro-Umno NGOs again, if you all really do not know what are in the provisions of the Federal Constitution, then get one copy for yourselves and read it before you start grumbling senselessly in public. Do not shield yourselves with whatever draconian laws.