KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 4 — Veteran lawmaker Tan Sri Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah today warned the government that the Federal Constitution would be undermined by the stifling of Parliament.
The Gua Musang MP said that any attempts to compromise the role of the Parliament and prevent it from exercising its true functions should be deemed illegal.
“It is established constitutional law that if the decision to prorogue Parliament is without justification, it is unlawful.
“If the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional function, to supervise the Executive, then it is unconstitutional,” he wrote in a statement today.
The Umno veteran then stressed that the constitution applies to all Malaysians, regardless of status, with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and prime minister as its sworn guardians.
Responding to lawyers’ remarks that it was the prime minister’s prerogative to determine when Parliament should sit despite the Agong saying it can, he argued that this view was incorrect.
“There are no prerogatives vested in the Agong or the prime minister. The Constitution is supreme.
“Lawyers who talk about prerogatives in relation to the conditional system in Malaysia are mistaken and have not understood that Malaysia is bound by the Constitution, and no prerogative, either historically or constitutionally, exists.
“Article 55 of the Constitution is very clear in the constitutional duty of the Agong. It’s not a function, it is a constitutional duty, and that duty cannot be compromised,” he wrote.
Tengku Razaleigh added that the recent decree was done by the King to ensure Parliament would go more than six months without meeting, as constitutionally required.
This after de facto law minister Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan yesterday announced the government’s decision to delay the sitting of Parliament despite the King’s decree, citing the advanced ages of most lawmakers as a possible risk.
He added that the risk was exponentially high as each MP would be accompanied by at least three officers. He said this excluded other government officials who would also be in attendance in Parliament, and said there would have been a large number of people gathering within an enclosed area at one time.
The PAS lawmaker asserted that Parliament was not suspended but merely postponed, going on to say their decision to not convene on March 8 as previously scheduled was based on existing scientific and data findings and described the MPs as among Malaysia’s Covid-19 “frontliners”.
Parliament last sat in November of last year.
