The Dewan Rakyat has rejected an oral question submitted by an MP requesting clarification on whether lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had broken the law in revealing details behind the pardon process of former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.
Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng had posed the question to Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.
In a letter dated Feb 23, Dewan Rakyat secretary Nizam Mydin Bacha Mydin said the question submitted by Lim (above) was “a secret” and therefore breached Standing Orders 23(1)(f) and 23(1)(h).
Standing Order 23(1)(f) states that a question submitted shall not seek information about any matter which is of its nature secret.
Standing Order 23(1)(h), on the other hand, states that a question shall not be asked for the purpose of obtaining an expression of opinion, the solution of an abstract legal case or the answer to a hypothetical proposition.
Kepong rep queries cops
When contacted, Lim said he had emailed Bukit Aman police headquarters this morning querying whether Shafee had breached the Official Secrets Act 1972.
Asked if he would lodge a police report on the matter, the DAP lawmaker responded in the affirmative.
“I definitely plan to do so if I do not receive any reply from the police regarding my question,” he told Malaysiakini.
Lim had previously called on the Pardons Board to clarify if Shafee had broken the law through his claims.
At a press conference on Feb 7, Shafee presented a letter carrying the seal of the previous Yang di-Pertuan Agong, which shed light on a possible impasse between the then-king and the Pardons Board regarding Najib’s sentence.
The letter, he said, revealed that the Pardons Board advised the Agong that Najib serve out his full sentence, but the king decided to cut Najib’s sentence by half and reduced the fine amount from RM210 million to RM50 million.
Shafee also claimed that Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah wanted to grant Najib a full pardon but later held a secret ballot to gauge the reaction of the non-permanent members of the Pardons Board to the idea.
He later claimed that the letter he had read was not confidential as it had been served to Najib and was a public document.
The lawyer admitted, however, that what transpired during the Pardons Board meeting does fall under the Official Secrets Act 1972. - Mkini
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