Why wait for July Parliament sitting to table Covid-19 bills?

MP SPEAKS | I refer to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) Takiyuddin Hassan’s Bicara Naratif interview on TV1 titled “Mengimbau Sidang Parlimen” dated May 18 where he spoke on several issues relating to the one-day Dewan Rakyat sitting on May 18.

One revelation by the minister during the interview is indeed truly puzzling and warrants the brunt of further scrutiny.

This being that the government would undertake an “unprecedented” move to amend existing acts and introduce new bills to better suit the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic currently faced by the country.

But this unelected backdoor government will only table these bills in the July sitting, after five months of the pandemic in the country.

Though I am glad that the de facto law minister (photo) has at last after some two long months in office finally understood the gravity and complexity of the legal intricacies surrounding this Covid-19 pandemic, I am still unsure if he understands entirely the urgency for these legal matters to be resolved by Parliament.

Thousands of Malaysians have been plunged into unemployment and face grave economic uncertainty.

Many more will be plunged into bankruptcy and insolvency in the coming months.

And the fresh graduates – what awaits them? These are among immediate national concerns which the government must resolve with legal and public policy solutions now.

Not months down the road in July.

By only tabling these very important bills in July, it is clear that the de facto law minister – who seems to want to speak more about having to appoint government MPs to government-linked companies (GLCs) to obtain their support in Parliament – does not think that these issues affecting ordinary and everyday Malaysians are important or worth this illegitimate government’s time to convene Parliament for.

I ask the de facto law minister – why the need to await the Dewan Rakyat’s July sitting to table and amend these important laws?

Why the refusal to call for a special sitting of the Dewan Rakyat immediately to table these laws and assist Malaysians now?

The faster these laws are tabled and enforced, the faster Malaysians can overcome the challenges of this pandemic.

But your fear to convene Parliament due to your illegitimacy is affecting all Malaysians today.

And it will only be so much worse in July. But you do not seem to care.

The PN-GPS government could have done it on May 18 but they thought nothing better of it.

Instead, Parliament was put under lockdown, too, and they prohibited MPs from giving press interviews in Parliament and denied our freedom of expression.

They also stopped the media from entering Parliament to report on the opening of Parliament and only allowed the government-owned media to do so.

In fact, the May 18 sitting went on well with the proper SOP being complied with by the officials and MPs.

If these can be done for these officials and MPs, surely the same can be done for the media who wish to enter and carried out their responsibilities in reporting.

The PN-GPS government could have continued the sitting the next few days by following the SOP as they had done for the first day of the parliamentary opening.

The odd thing is that they allowed the business and economic sectors to open up during this conditional MCO but totally locked up the parliamentary door and disallowed MPs from speaking in Parliament.

This is an affront to parliamentary democracy which Malaysia has enjoyed since independence.

I call on the de facto law minister to table a paper to his prime minister in the PN-GPS government to immediately convene a special parliamentary sitting as soon as possible to table these Covid-19 bills he mentioned to assist all Malaysians at once.

Do not allow your razor-thin majority in Parliament by possibly only one MP at most, to risk the lives of Malaysians. It is not worth it.

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LIEW VUI KEONG is the Member of Parliament for Batu Sapi and is a former law and parliamentary affairs minister. - Mkini