‘Only govt can enact laws, not opposition’

Private member's bill are not debated because only the government can enact laws, says Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker Ismail Mohamed Said.

KUALA LUMPUR: Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker Ismail Mohamed Said said the opposition’s private members’ bill are not debated because opposition lawmakers were not supposed to enact laws.

“They must understand that the power to enact laws lies with the government and not the opposition.

“However, they can propose amendments when a bill is tabled by the government, like what M Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat) always does,” he said.

In refuting N Surendran’s (PKR-Padang Serai) criticism against the Malaysian Parliament on Monday, Ismail said efforts had been made to improve the quality of the House.

“We will allow them to speak, but whether or not the amendment will be adopted is up to the majority voice of the House,” he told FMT after the parliament’s sitting yesterday.

Ismail was commenting on the case of Nurul Izzah Anwar (PKR- Lembah Pantai) who submitted a private member’s bill to abolish the Sedition Act in the last session, but the bill did not see daylight.

Surendran had said the Parliament did not reserve any day for the opposition, strikes out private member’s bill and backbenchers’ motion and required 14 days notice for MPs to submit their questions.

“This is a Robert Mugabe parliament, it is a laughing stock,” he said, referring to Zimbabwe’s long-serving dictator.

Ismail reminded Surendran that it was the MPs who had decided the rules and regulations of the House.

He said the existing rules were good enough to ensure the sitting went on smoothly.

“We have extended the question-and-answer session from 10am-11am to 10am-11.30am and give priority to the opposition members to ask supplementary questions,” he said.

He said the government had also allowed several joint motions from the opposition and the government to be debated such as to condemn the violence in Palestine.

“It is wrong to say we did not allow backbencher’s motion to be debated,” he added.

Insulting Zimbabwe

Minister in the Prime Minister Department Shahidan Kassim took Surendran to task for “insulting Zimbabwe” by likening the parliament here with that of Zimbabwe.

“Who does he think he is to insult another country like this? How does he know that the Zimbabwe parliament is lousy? Maybe it is the best in the world.

“So which country does he think has the best system? Is it India or China? China doesn’t have parliament,” he said.

Shahidan said the Malaysian parliament gave plenty of space to the opposition.

“We allow one supplementary question from Pakatan, followed by one from BN during Q&A session. We are criticised by our people for doing that,” he said.