[Admin] No evolution in Parliament Kluang MP Liew Chin Tong said the Malaysian Parliament should be an evolving institution, like Britains, on which the Malaysian model was founded. For example, he said, Britains Parliament only introduced the standing committee system to monitor ministries in 1979. He called for the Malaysian Parliament to be modernised to accommodate the different voices and provide room for ideas to be heard. The government is not interested in the opposition or backbenchers venturing into policy matters. Basically, the government just needs everyone there to rubber stamp the policies, Liew said. Using the budget as an example, Liew said the 222 MPs had to go through the budgets of 24 ministries. Due to constraints, there were often no questioning of civil servants or debates on the details. We just look at the number, at the heading and then bring up other issues we want to highlight because there is no other avenue, Liew said. Too often, the MPs take up time by debating local issues in their constituencies rather than focus on law-making. A way to balance both was to have separate debates and speeches on local constituency issues so that parliamentary time was not affected, Liew said. He said Britains Parliament allows MPs to raise issues of importance through a series of private members adjournment debates. He also lamented the reduction of parliamentary sitting from 70 days to just 50 days a year, compared with 150 days in England. - See more at: themalaysianinsider/malaysia/article/reforming-parliament-top-on-pakatan-agenda-if-it-wins-federal-power#sthash.XNMy2Wl9.dpuf
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 12:00:00 +0000
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