ADUN SPEAKS When the 13th session of Parliament convenes on June 24, we will witness the first battle between Pakatan Rakyat and the BN - over the appointment of the Dewan Rakyat speaker.

Pakatan has named former Federal Court judge Abdul Kadir Sulaiman as its choice of speaker.

 

PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim has said the party’s Bandar Tun Razak MP Abdul Khalid Ibrahim submitted the notice on June 10 to the Dewan Rakyat clerk, under Standing Order 4(1).

Anwar also said the speaker must be appointed from the ranks of those who are independent, non-partisan, competent and qualified to serve.

NONE The BN is expected to re-nominate Pandikar Amin Mulia (right) , who served as speaker during the 12th session. He was Sabah state assembly speaker from 1986 to 1988. He was also the Umno Kota Marudu divison head before being appointed Dewan Rakyat speaker.

When he was elected to this post, he resigned as division head but remained an ordinary member of Umno.

He signed the party post because the Westminster parliamentary democracy system that Malaysia inherited from UK requires the speaker to be truly impartial and independent of political influence.

Even so, what Pandikar Amin did was insufficient to prove his independence and impartiality. In  countries that practise the Westminster system, the speaker has to resign from his or her political party.

For example, John Bercow, the Conservative party’s Buckingham MP, resigned from his party when he was elected speaker of the House of Commons in UK in 2009 after Michael John Martin (a former Labour Party MP) tendered his resignation.

NONE It may seem strange to many Malaysians that Bercow was elected speaker at a time when the Labour party formed the government. It shows that British MPs choose their speaker based on capability, instead of following the party line.

I now return to Pandikar Amin - should he be chosen, his integrity in chairing the Dewan Rakyat proceedings could be affected because he is still an Umno member.

In fact, not a single speaker at state assembly level has resigned from their respective political parties. This proves that the political climate in Malaysia still plagued by partisanship.

‘Don’t undermine the post’

Resigning from the political party is seen as inappropriate because the speaker may have to rely on the party’s resources to retain his electoral seat and to serve voters.

However, by convention, the speaker’s constituency is not contested by any major political party out of respect for the speaker.

For example in the 2010 UK polls, the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties did not contest Bercow’s constituency in the spirit of ‘the speaker seeking re-election’.

In fact, this statement is printed on the ballot paper in the speaker’s constituency. The speaker often gets a walkover, although he or she may face challenges from smaller parties or Independent candidates.

This tradition is to ensure that the speaker is able to carry out his duties with fairness and justice,  and is independent of any political influence.

azlan Thus, Pakatan’s proposal to nominate a former Federal Court judge has to be viewed as a noble effort toward achieving a ‘First World Parliament’ - one where the Speaker is truly independent and impartial in chairing the proceedings.

However, Abdul Kadir’s chances of winning are slim because BN parliamentarians will not vote for him, although I believe that he would be able to open people’s minds to the importance of this role.

Former Selangor state assembly speaker Teng Chang Kim’s remarkable track-record has proven to the people that this post must not undermined, as has happened previously.

A great speaker would uphold the dignity, role and importance of the House. It would not be seen as a rubber-stamp, since the Executive will have to be answerable to Parliament.

Wouldn’t this be of greater benefit to the people?

LAU WENG SAN is the DAP’s Selangor state assembly representative for Kampung Tunku.