Zahid confident Hadi's bill won't come to vote this sitting

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is confident the private member's bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdictions) Act or Act 355 would not come to a vote during this parliamentary session.

However, he stressed the fate of PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang's bill remains at the discretion of Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia.

“We will leave it to the speaker to allow the tabling (of the bill) after all government business has concluded.

“That means on the last day of the Dewan Rakyat sitting on April 6, after all government business has concluded, only then (would) private member’s bills (be tabled).

“We leave it to the speaker’s discretion whether there would be elaboration or debate, but I am confident that there would be no voting.

“I am confident that there would be no vote.

"Nevertheless, it is up to the speaker to decide on the parliament’s proceedings,” he told a press conference in Subang today, after chairing the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation annual general meeting.

When asked again whether Umno MPs would be allowed to vote on the bill according to their conscience however, Zahid was evasive.

“I have just answered I don’t think the speaker will open the bill for voting,” he said.

“I think he (the speaker) won’t,” he said, when asked what if the matter did come to a vote.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had been similarly evasive when asked on Thursday whether BN parliamentarians would vote in support of Hadi's bill.

"Maybe there will be a vote, or not. Up to the speaker's instructions," Najib said at the time, following the BN Supreme Council meeting that day.

Zahid had previously said that the government would table the bill proposed by Hadi, and claimed that Najib was committed in making the amendments.

The Bill would increase the maximum punishment that can be meted out by syariah courts, from the current three year’s imprisonment, RM5,000 fine, and six strokes of the rotan, to 30 years’ imprisonment, RM100,000 fine, and 100 strokes of the rotan.

Amid stiff opposition from BN component parties however, Najib announced that the Bill would remain a private member’s bill instead of a government bill.

Meanwhile, when asked about the lawsuit by one Mohamed Tawfik Ismail to stop the bill from being tabled, Zahid said it is Tawfik’s prerogative to file the lawsuit.

However, he pointed out that parliament has its own rules and protocols, and power is vested in the speaker to decide whether a bill can be tabled or not.

Tawfik, the son of the late deputy prime minister Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman, had filed a suit at the Kuala Lumpur High Court yesterday seeking a declaration that the proposed amendments are unconstitutional.

He also claimed that Hadi’s motion did not conform to the requirement of parliament’s standing orders, and that the Conference of Rulers should first be consulted on the proposed amendments.- Mkini