This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 1, 2021 - March 7, 2021

As a former member of parliament (MP) for Balik Pulau and someone who has spoken and written many times advocating parliamentary reforms, I was pleasantly surprised by the recent letter written by the Pengerang MP, Azalina Othman Said, who happens to also be the current deputy speaker of the Dewan Rakyat.

Her letter, whose departure point is her defence of the standing and role of parliament in the Constitution, is in stark contrast to the obsequious posture adopted by the speaker himself in his silence in defending the institution he leads. The bigger surprise, of course, is that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong formally opined that, indeed, parliament can convene even with the declaration of Emergency.

The MP, a former minister whose portfolios included minister in charge of law, wrote the letter to the Attorney-General arguing that the AG should, in light of the declaration of Emergency and the suspension of all activities of parliament, advise for the suspension of the cabinet as well and a smaller Emergency cabinet be formed instead to govern the country.

She cogently argued, and I concur with her, that the principle of separation of powers and the role of parliament are compromised as the executive retains the full cabinet while parliament is fully suspended with the declaration of Emergency — the emasculation of the legislature, to use her own words.

The gravity of the declaration of an Emergency cannot just affect the legislature and leave the executive unscathed, which is the case now. The government — the cabinet and the civil service — remains and the body that it is constitutionally responsible to, parliament, is suspended. It is in this light that she also proposed that a bipartisan parliamentary committee chaired by the speaker be formed to enforce ministerial responsibility and provide overall oversight of the government during the Emergency.

The MP is right to use the word “emasculation”, as indeed parliament is constitutionally unencumbered, even from the executive, to carry out its functions. Such powers cannot be challenged in the courts and parties can be judged by either chamber of parliament to be in contempt of parliament.

It is also the case that members are immune from civil or criminal proceedings for what they say in parliament. The view from the AG’s chambers that even the committees of parliament cannot be convened impedes parliament from carrying out its functions. It has indeed been emasculated.

While the Covid-19 pandemic is a major crisis, an emergency certainly, the declaration of an Emergency in the Malaysian context has specific connotations. It could have still been an Emergency but without suspending parliament. That was the opinion expressed by the king. Parliament can grant whatever exemptions and facilitation powers — followed by proper oversight afterwards — that will be required to address the pandemic. It is now a bit of a mockery that schools are reopening next month but the sitting of parliament is suspended.

This, of course, invites the conclusion that the Emergency is purely politically motivated, which is unfortunate if it is true. There are those who quite absurdly argued that if parliament is not suspended, there will be too much politicking, making managing the crisis difficult. Understandably and unfortunately, the ones doing so are politicians themselves, whose self-interests are obvious but whose sense of public and national interests is suspect. There are also commentators who should know better using the same line of argument.

The business of parliament is politics, and it should be a functioning institution, a noisy and oftentimes contentious place, but the rules are clear. It should be the somewhat neutral platform to form a government from partisanship, but governing is a collective responsibility. Winners in the partisan game form the government but the opposition too is part of governing, and in particular, in its governance. That the boundaries of partisanship are currently fluid is not a reason to curtail the functioning of parliament.

Parliament is properly located in the Constitution but its functioning must be reformed. The MP’s letter is heartening as it reflects true parliamentary values in wanting not only the role of parliament to be recognised but also its functioning to be properly effected.

The issues of parliamentary reform either via legislation or changes to its standing orders and its organisational independence must be major issues for the next general election (GE). There must be adequate political education to facilitate a robust political contest.

The electorate and especially first-time voters, which should include 18- to 20-year-olds, must be made aware of what is at stake. Contesting parties must be made to commit to these reforms and it would be to the advantage of the present government to actually effect the reforms ahead of the elections.

Lest parliamentary reforms be seen as abstract and detached from the concerns of citizens struggling with their everyday lives, people should be well reminded of the things that have gone wrong in the past and how, had parliamentary oversight been better, things could have turned out differently. How, in the end, it is the taxpayers who have to bear the costs including the opportunity costs of doing something else that directly benefits the people.

Take the examples of what happened to statutory entities — Tabung Haji and the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA), for instance — and government companies such as 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). Tabung Haji had to be rescued by the government when it transferred assets with a market value of RM9.63 billion to the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in exchange for RM19.90 billion of sukuk, which were then used to balance its accounts.

The difference in value, some RM10.3 billion, represents the amount of bailout using public funds. This accumulated impairment of investments could have been prevented if parliament had had better oversight of statutory entities throughout the years. It is also worth noting that the Tabung Haji Act gave wide powers to the minister in charge, thus making the point that parliament should have oversight of executive decisions as well.

Statutory body FELDA was flush with cash amounting to billions but six years after the listing of its business units through FGV Holdings Bhd, it was in debt. When it listed FGV at an IPO price of RM4.50, FELDA received RM6 billion and FGV itself received RM4.9 billion. By 2019, both FELDA and FGV had exhausted their cash reserves and were in debt, and needed the government to bail them out.

FGV ended 2019 at barely RM1.50 per share and having lost almost RM20 billion in market capitalisation. FELDA itself is broke to the point that it cannot fulfil its obligations to the settlers. Again, parliamentary oversight, on top of ministerial and regulatory oversight, could have prevented all this. Again, the FELDA experience shows that both ministerial and regulatory oversight failed.

The 1MDB story has been told many times and is still unfolding. It represents the worst that could happen to an MoF-owned company. One of the things the case highlighted is the use of government guarantees issued to MoF-owned companies and not just 1MDB, which therefore formed contingent liabilities to the government, that by the end of 2019 was an accumulated RM275 billion.

These obligations are approved outside of the budgets tabled in parliament but the expenses to service most of these liabilities come from those budgets. Parliament does not approve these guarantees issued by the cabinet but is required to approve payments to discharge the guarantees. This is why there should be something like a finance and appropriations committee at parliament that oversees all these decisions by the executive.

This, if properly done, could have prevented or at least minimised these occurrences and, in the process, helped to point out to new legislative initiatives that are needed to improve things. One can think of the funding model of the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) as well as entities such as the national housing corporation PR1MA, which received such guarantees but whose financial models are problematic and unsustainable.

In my last speech as a MP back in November 1999 — I knew I would not stand again — the topic I touched on was about parliamentary reform, which was also the topic of my first speech. It was about the importance of parliament as an institution and the things decided in parliament, and how despite that, individual MPs have almost no role in the substance of the decisions taken, and how the public in general is seemingly uninterested in the goings-on in parliament apart from the partisan bantering and shenanigans covered by the press, and do not hold parliamentarians and politicians generally in high regard.

Five GEs later, not much has changed. In the coming GE, we have to change this. Elections are not just about forming governments, they are also about how government governs and how it is governed. And we should elect MPs who are capable and competent to do the job.

My congratulations to the MP for Pengerang for her letter, and most of all, my humble appreciation to the Agong for his guidance to the government. Parliament is indeed made up of the Agong, Dewan Negara and Dewan Rakyat. It cannot be simply suspended.

Dr Nungsari A Radhi is an economist and former member of parliament for Balik Pulau

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