British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has proposed that Britons be given the right to recall their members of Parliament. What this means is that voters have the right to remove their representative that they no longer have confidence in, essentially a no-confidence motion on their representative.

There are two important reasons why I feel such a motion is directly relevant in Malaysia today, and should be applied at the federal and state-level;

1. It will tackle the issue of party crossover in a voter-centric fashion - if a candidate crosses from one party to another, but does so in accordance with the wishes of his constituents, then he would have nothing to fear.

On the other hand, if the voters disapprove, they can get rid of their representative and pave the way for fresh elections.

2. Malaysians vote along party lines, and so it is important that parties be very careful in candidate selection, but sometimes some bad representatives slip through the filters and get elected on the strength of their party's ticket.

If it becomes clear that a representative is grossly underperforming or betraying the beliefs and trust of their constituents - thus not living up to the standards of his party - voters armed with the right-to-recall would be able to get rid of the errant representative.

There can be a comprehensive discussion on how best to implement the mechanics of a recall in the Malaysian context - for example, we have to be careful not to create a situation where a small number of fringe disgruntled voters can bring down or even merely disrupt the work of an MP who in fact has the support of the majority. Controls can be put in place, as they are in other countries that have this practice.

But first I think we must first consider whether or not the principle of the right-to-recall is relevant in Malaysia.

I gave two specific reasons why I believe the right-to-recall is necessary in Malaysia, but more broadly, the right-to-recall not only empowers the rakyat to take action against errant representatives, it also obligates them to take responsibility for their choice of representative.

I think greater collective responsibility in Malaysian politics can only be a good thing.