Politicians must protect sanctity of constitution, says Ku Li

SHAH ALAM: Umno veteran Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has reminded politicians that their first pledge of office is to protect the sanctity and supremacy of the Federal Constitution.

He called the practice of “willy nilly amending” a democratically-adopted constitution as a mockery of the constitution itself.

“A constitution is certainly much higher than that of the assembly of politicians,” he said in his keynote address at a public forum organised by G25 at the Ideal Convention Centre here today.

Razaleigh said any amendments made to the constitution should be done solely to improve the nation’s quality of life and that in doing so, the supremacy of the constitution is not jeapordised.

“Amending a constitution to shore up and strengthen the power of an incumbent first among equals amounts to no more than an abuse of power,” said the Gua Musang MP, who is popularly known as Ku Li.

He also emphasised the importance of a finely-balanced separation of powers in a working constitutional democracy.

“A student of politics is inclined to think that this is stating the obvious but we have to mention it because the separation of powers had once been trampled upon in our case.

“It is worth noting that the resulting negative impact is still felt, to an extent, by one particular branch,” Razaleigh said, alluding to the loss of the independence of the judiciary following amendments to the constitution when Dr Mahathir Mohamad led the Barisan Nasional government as prime minister between 1981 and 2003.

He suggested a law be enacted to define and determine the separation of powers and that severe penalties be imposed on any transgression of this law.

“Similarly, a law should be enacted to forbid or prohibit authorities from exercising discretionary powers independently as this could lead to abuse.”

The loss of judicial independence is believed to have started with the 1988 judicial crisis, when Salleh Abas (then Lord President of the Supreme Court) was removed from office and five other Supreme Court judges were suspended.

“Machiavellian leaders would think nothing of dismantling that separation,” said Razaleigh, who was a member of the opposition with Semangat 46 at the time.

In his speech, Razaleigh also claimed that in discussions with “friends” many had alluded to the possibility of a hung parliament following the next general election (GE14).

“This would mean that the voters are neither for returning the government of the day to office nor giving power to the opposition coalition,” he said, suggesting voters could desire a non-divisive government, comprising all the political stakeholders.

“This is essentially a national unity government. In such a scenario as this, where all parties need to come together, the Executive branch must be led by a politician acceptable to both sides of the aisle in the Dewan Rakyat.

“Given the present national economic position, that person needs to be an MP with a proven record.” -FMT