Release the report by Institutional Reforms Committee

 

G25 Malaysia supports the call by the ex-president of the Bar Council Ambiga Sreenevasan, for the government to release the Report of the Institutional Reforms Committee (IRC) which was set up in 2018 during the Pakatan Harapan government under former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The IRC heard the views of various civil society groups on strengthening the system of governance and the rule of law.

G25 was one of the groups invited by the IRC. We went fully prepared as we had done much work on the subject of parliamentary reforms and political financing, among others.

G25’s inputs presented to the committee were on four themes; parliamentary select committees, invigorating economic confidence in Malaysia, political financing and the administration of matters pertaining to Islam in the country.

Our group supported the Malaysian Economic Association in their organisation of a public forum on parliamentary select committees (PSCs) on Aug 11, 2016, where speakers from four countries participated namely the UK, Australia, India and Indonesia.

They were former MPs in their respective countries. One of our G25 members Hishamudin Yunus, who once served as a deputy parliamentary draftsperson prior to his elevation to the bench, also gave a critical presentation at the forum on the functioning of PSCs in Parliament.

Hishamudin Yunus

Our report on the forum was presented to the then-speaker of Parliament, who commended us on the recommendations on how to make the PSCs function effectively in providing checks and balances to the government, thereby making the administration transparent and accountable to the people.

The speaker himself visited the parliaments in Australia and the UK to see how well PSCs there functioned. In these countries, the PSCs are provided with the necessary administrative and financial resources and they functioned with full professional support from the parliamentary staff.

Another major study by G25 was on political financing. It was led by Terence Gomez, who was then a senior professor at Universiti Malaya.

Terence Gomez

He is considered an authority on the subject and was often consulted by foreign advocacy institutions in their promotion of good practices in democracy in third-world countries of Africa and Asia.

All advocacy groups agree that political donations are at the root of all the rent-seeking, cronyism and corruption, not only in Malaysia - but in other countries as well.

The former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak himself admitted that the money that went to his private bank account was allegedly from a “foreign donor”. He admitted that it was for his party’s political activities.

In most democracies, it is illegal for political parties to receive foreign donations. Najib agreed that our laws should be reformed to follow best practices in the world regarding political financing.

Gomez and his graduate students did a lot of research on international practices for the G25 report. The proposals in the report were based on meetings with members of business groups, political parties and civil societies.

We also reached out for feedback on our proposals from political financing experts based in the US and Australia. We based our presentation to the IRC on this report.

There were other recommendations from our group as Malaysia needs reforms in many aspects of institutional governance to make the country a better democracy with fewer scandals that embarrass the people.

Counter cynics with facts

G25 respectfully urges the government to release the Report of the IRC as soon as possible since it was 2018.

This is so that the public can read the recommendations of the IRC in the report and show their support for the reforms to be expedited.

The greater the public support, the easier it will be for Putrajaya to face the cynics who believe that the institutional reforms are a Western and Jewish conspiracy to weaken Malay power and Islam in governing the country.

The best way to deal with such negativity is to publish the IRC report for the public to see the recommendations for themselves. - Mkini

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G25 is an NGO of individuals, rich with experience in various fields with diverse views but a common goal and common vision.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.