The requirement of a 24-hour notice to the speaker for all emergency motions in parliament should be changed, said a lawmaker yesterday.

Fong Po Kuan, Batu Gajah member of parliament, also called for the lifting of all time and word limitations on MPs in debates.

"MPs are allowed restricted time for debate. Each member is allowed only 10 questions for oral replies and these are limited to 40 words. How much can we ask?" queried Fong, who was suspended from parliament last December.

Fong was suspended for six months without pay after criticising parliamentary speaker Mohamed Zahir Ismail for refusing her application to debate the scandal involving exam leaks and marks tampering of the certificate of legal practise.

Fong was one of the speakers at the forum "Reforms in Parliament" organised by the DAP in Kuala Lumpur last night.

Among the issues that were raised at the forum were the deliberative processes of parliament and the electoral system itself.

Besides Fong, the other speakers were DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang, lawyer Salbiah Ahmad and Women's Development Collective activist Irene Xavier.

'Prime ministerial dictatorship'

Fong also took issue with the practice of government ministers in incorporating the views of ruling party MPs when preparing a bill for tabling, views that are not subjected to debate in parliament.

"Once a first reading of a bill is made, that will be how it will be passed without amendments," said Fong.

She said that improvements to parliamentary processes would only come when the public scrutines the proceedings through live television coverage of the sessions.

Lim offered the view that parliament's basic functions to legislate, deliberate and hold the government accountable for its actions have been compromised by "prime ministerial dictatorship" of the country.

According to Lim, parliament has been made "weak and impotent" by the concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister.

"The concept of separation of powers [between the executive and legislature] has been eroded. Parliament should not be subservient to the executive and the prime minister," said the veteran politician.

Lawyer Salbiah Ahmad said effective reform of parliament could only take place if the public is aware of the meanaing and significance of its voting power.

According to her, a monopolistic central government, cabinet and prime minister translate into problems for local councils which become mere appendages of the central government.

She said security services are then protected from parliamentary scrutiny and are increasingly manipulated for political ends.

No longer accountable

Drawing from her study of the British parliamentary system, on which the Malaysian system is based, Salbiah said a monopolistic central government may also result in a "cabinet government" whereby ministers no longer feel accountable to parliament and its role to question ministerial actions.

She added that collusion between ministers and parliamentarians also result in problems of "syndicated questions" whereby the politicians ask each other set types of questions in order to generate an appearance of accountability.

As for the Malaysian electoral system, Salbiah cited the views of a UK-based parliamentary observer that the simple majority or "first past the post" system may not represent an accurate and fair representation of the people.

"The first-past-the-post system manufactures a majority party from a minority of votes passed," she added.

Salbiah said there is evidence to show that better representation, particularly of non-homogeneous polities, would result from moving away from the simple majority system towards a proportional one.

A proportional system of government is one where political parties are present in parliament in proportion to the percentage of votes garnered at the polls.

Sexual harassment

Another reform that is needed in parliament, said WDC representative Irene Xavier, is an end to harassment of women parliamentarians.

Xavier said the harassment is a result of certain quarters' difficulty in acknowledging women's capabilities to perform tasks as well as their male counterparts.

According to her, this attitude is reflected in the many different institutions in the country, from families to religious bodies, where women have not been accepted as equals of men.

"Malaysia should have a system whereby women are encouraged to participate. A 30 percent quota for women [should be considered] in all institutions," said Xavier, who added that Malaysia currently falls in with more than half of all countries in the world which have less than 10 percent female representation in politics.

Xavier said even in cases where there is a relatively high female representation in government, another persistent problem faced by women is that they are often relegated to taking charge of social matters instead of executive areas.