Pandikar & Roosme must come clean on whether they helped Zahid to cheat over PCA - Surendran

I refer to the statements made by Home Minister Ahmad Zahid that he had ensured that the Speaker and the Dewan Rakyat secretary would be on his 'side' during the PCA debate last week. This admission strikes at the very basis of our parliamentary democracy and calls into question the integrity of the Dewan Rakyat.

It is a fundamental characteristic of the office of the Speaker that he must be absolutely impartial in presiding over proceedings in the Dewan Rakyat. The chief authority on parliamentary practice in the Commonwealth, Erskine May, states that ' confidence in the impartiality of the Speaker is indispensable..'

Zahid's stunning admission massively undermines national confidence in the Dewan Rakyat as the nations's supreme law-making chamber. It is also a confession that Ahmad Zahid had attempted to pervert the proper functioning of the Dewan Rakyat.

Corruption in Parliament

Worse is Zahid's claim that he had ensured that Dewan Rakyat Secretary Datuk Roosme Hamzah would be on his 'side'. The Dewan Rakyat Secretary is a top civil servant who should be scrupulously impartial in carrying out her duties. Impartiality of the civil service is fundamental in any properly working democracy. What Zahid has admittted to is nothing short of an attempt to taint and undermine the civil service in order to achieve his narrow political objectives.

As a result of Zahid's underhand moves, the crucial PCA amendments which threaten fundamental rights, were bulldozed through parliament without adequate scrutiny or debate. The motive was clearly to prevent a proper debate which would have exposed to the public the dangers and the unconstitutionality of the PCA amendments.

Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia and Dewan Rakyat Secretary Datuk Roosme Hamzah must now respond to the allegations made by Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

The Malaysian public is entitled to know what really happened in the Dewan Rakyat during those crucial days of the PCA debate.

N Surendran is the MP for Padang Serai