Saying Hadi’s bill will have to be tabled afresh at the next Dewan Rakyat, DAP parliamentary leader claims yesterday’s drama in Parliament was scripted by BN.
PETALING JAYA: DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang has slammed yesterday’s parliamentary proceedings, asking who the “bloody fool” is now following the uproar over PAS’ shariah bill.
Saying that Pandikar Amin Mulia had abused his powers as Dewan Rakyat speaker, Lim added that the entire proceedings had been a “script” right from the start.
“Was (PAS president) (Abdul) Hadi (Awang) making use of the prime minister and Umno president Najib Razak, or Najib making use of Hadi?
“Who is the ‘bloody fool’ from the outrageous and disgusting parliamentary episode yesterday – Pandikar, members of Parliament or Malaysians as a whole?”
Yesterday, chaos erupted in the Dewan Rakyat when Pandikar abruptly called a halt to debate the motion on tabling the bill to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, also known as Act 355.
Pandikar had stopped the debate after PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan finished explaining his reasons for tabling the bill, first tabled last year by Hadi.
“If you have power, you are powerful; if you don’t use your power, you are a bloody fool. Today, I don’t want to be a bloody fool,” Pandikar had said.
In a statement today, Lim said Pandikar had overstepped his authority as speaker.
“The speaker has no authority to create his own rules or arrogate to himself powers that are not in the Dewan Rakyat standing orders, or we will have a dictator as speaker of Parliament.”
As Hadi’s motion was not debated and voted upon, he said, the motion would lapse, and Hadi would have to start from square one at the next Dewan Rakyat sitting in July.
This was because there was no provision in the standing orders for the deferment of debate on a motion to the subsequent meeting, he said.
“In fact, any motion which is not debated and voted at a parliamentary meeting lapses, and notice of the motion would have to be given again to keep it alive on the agenda of the subsequent parliamentary meeting.”
Lim said there was clear proof that yesterday’s proceeding was a “script”, starting with the fact that the Dewan Rakyat meeting on Wednesday had gone on for 20 hours until 5.05am on Thursday.
He said five government bills were also withdrawn, to “clear the decks” for Hadi’s motion.
Secondly, he said, Pandikar had told PKR’s Gopeng MP Lee Boon Chye that the government had asked the House to fast-track Hadi’s motion – proof that the Barisan Nasional (BN) government, representing 12 component parties, had made the call although Malaysians were told that BN would not adopt the shariah bill.
But the strongest proof that yesterday’s proceedings had been a script was MIC president S Subramaniam’s admission that BN leaders had known all along that Hadi’s bill would be tabled, but not debated, he said.
“The speaker of Parliament cannot be a dictator, and all the speaker’s claims yesterday about the supremacy of Parliament are just eye-wash, because in reality, the speaker acts under the directive of the executive.”