DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang doubts PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang's private member's bill to pave way for the hudud will even make it to vote stage in Parliament let alone that it be passed.

Even if it did, said Lim, PAS is unlikely to have the numbers to pass the private member's bill.

Lim said that Hadi had in 1996 made a similar attempt and the private member's bill remained in the Dewan Rakyat Order Paper and never came up for a vote.

"I believe the same will happen in the May meeting of Parliament where Hadi's hudud private member's bill motion will appear and remain in the Dewan Rakyat Order Paper but will not reach the stage of being presented to Parliament for debate and vote," he said in a statement today.

Private member’s bills are lower priority compared to government bills in the Order Paper.

Hadi's bill appeared in the Order Paper in the recently-concluded first Parliamentary session on 2013, but was not tabled due to a raft of government bills. He will need to resubmit it for the next session in May.

Lim (right) said Hadi's bill can only reach for a vote if the Umno-led BN government allows it to jump the queue and be tabled before government bills.

If this happens, he warned, cracks will appear within BN, particularly among the Sabah and Sarawak component parties, and put the survival of the Malaysian federation at risk.

East Malaysia has insisted that hudud was never part of the deal when the territories agreed to form the Malaysian federation.

'Hadi gave his word on Feb 8 '

Lim conceded that the private member's bill has already created a crisis in the Pakatan Rakyat, whether or not it makes it to the voting stage.

The veteran DAP man said he does not want to interfere in PAS matters when Hadi said it was " normal " when he kept his own party in the dark over the bill.

However, he said, he must speak up because the PAS leader also has a commitment to Pakatan.

"What Pakatan is concerned (about) is the specific commitment by Hadi at the Pakatan leadership council meeting at PAS headquarters on Feb 8, 2015 [...]

"(The) Pakatan leadership council took the unanimous decision that any amendments to the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Enactment in the Kelantan State Assembly or any private member’s bill in Parliament on hudud implementation will be presented first to the Pakatan leadership council.

"Both these commitments have not been honoured by Hadi (left) , although he represented PAS at the Pakatan leadership council meeting on Feb 8, 2015," he said.

Lim questioned how Pakatan could still operate as a viable political coalition of basic commitments are not upheld by Pakatan leaders.

"This is the root cause of the Pakatan crisis which will spell the survival or demise of the Pakatan Rakyat," he said.

The private member's bill seeks to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, which currently limits punishment meted out by syariah courts to no more than three years’ imprisonment, up to RM5,000 fine, and six strokes of rotan for certain offences.

 

Removing the limits will allow the Kelantan syariah courts to issue punishment according to the state’s syariah criminal code, which among others include stoning to death and up to 80 lashings.

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