Parliament

Is the Scrutiny of Bills effective in Parliament?

No.

Functions of Parliament (briefly)

-Parliament is the prime law-making body in the country. A Bill cannot become law without the going through the fires of scrutiny in Parliament. Each of the government’s policy is put into effect through legislation

- Parliament controls the national expenditure and scrutinises public expenditure. Money Bills cannot become law without the authority of Parliament. The Dewan Rakyat oversees matters of national expenditure through its Public Accounts Committee (PAC)

- Parliament also checks on the Executive. The Executive represents the people. Therefore, the Parliament must ensure that the Executive is accountable to the people.

- Parliament checks on Executive by checking on the Bills. Since the Bills are introduced by the Executive, such Bills contain the policies of the Executive. Hence, they are indirectly checking on the Executive. Debates on the bill happen in the 2^nd reading and the committee stage (clause to clause basis).

Procedure for the passing of Bills (very briefly)

Bills are introduced by Ministers most of the time. In Dewan Rakyat, the Bill goes through the First Reading, Second Reading, Committee Stage, Report Stage, Third Reading and is passed to the Dewan Negara. The same cycle occurs in the Dewan Negara. After the Bill has been passed in both Dewan, it will be sent to the YDPA for his Royal Assent and published in the Federal Gazette to take effect.

Parliament is not playing its role properly (why?)

(i) Dewan Rakyat

- dominated by ruling party. Bills are simply debated because the ruling party will be supporting their own Bill.

- PM uses Party Whip to ensure that important Bills will go through. MPs from the ruling party will have no choice but to support the Bill.

- At the Committee Stage, the number of MPs is very small. A lot of MPs do not attend the session, thus, debates are not effective. Since Independence, only five Bills have been committed to Select Committees

-There are many motions to restrict the debates; namely; guillotine motion, kangaroo motion and closure motions

Kangaroo motion - If any MP from the ruling party decides to propose a motion to skip certain debates, if more than half the house agree then they can skip whatever was proposed and so they will only debate whatever they want to debate.

Guillotine motion - Whenever the MPs are debating, if the ruling party finds the debate is taking too long, any MPs can set a time to end the debate, whether on a particular issue or the whole debate. Again, they will vote, if more than half the house agrees then it’ll happen.

(ii) Dewan Negara

-Better in the sense that there are no motions to restrict the debates

- Senators are more learned; they have more time and less politically aligned

-However, Dewan Negara can only delay a Bill for 1 year and for money Bills only 30 days if they don’t agree with the Bill.

(iii) YDPA

- YDPA has to give his royal assent to Bills within 30 days, if he doesn’t, it still becomes law

There are other mechanisms in the Parliament to check on the Executive

(i) Select Committees

- Special Committees formed in Parliament, consisting of MPs and their role is to check on Ministries. Sometimes they may be formed at the Committee stage of the Bills and sometimes formed to check on the issue, for example, the Electoral System

- Plays a key role in eliminating loopholes or defects in Bills before they become law

Why it is not effective

- Most of the MPs in the Select Committee are members from the ruling party. They will not scrutinize the Bills introduced from their own ruling party.

- It is not compulsory to debate on the report given by the Select Committee. Most of the time, the reports are disregarded.

- The members of the SC are not experts and the SC may not know what is right or wrong

- SC cannot subpoena or compel Ministers to answer their questions

-However, the Public Accounts Committee is a good SC, it really checks on the government.

-Although the SC is not very effective, at least the Ministries are afraid because there is someone watching over them. Unfortunately, the SC can only check on what has already happened and not what is happening.

(ii) Question Time

- It is a procedure in Parliament for the Ministers to answer questions regarding their ministries.

- It takes place during the Second Reading, Committee Stage, etc

-It is important as it compels the Ministers to be responsible and accountable to the people. For Question Time, oral answers are important for it to be effective.

Why it is not effective

- The time allocated for Question Time is too short

- Most of the questions asked are replied in the written form, where very few actually read it.

- Any ‘dangerous’ questions will be put at the bottom and it would not be answered orally due to time constraint.

- 2 days notice must be given to the minister so that the minister will prepare the answer very carefully. However, the answer is most probably prepared by civil servants in his department that have a vast amount of resources to answer the question. The answers prepared might be even more effective than the question asked.

- Ministers can always use stone-walling, i.e. no real answer is given and the minister speaks about something irrelevant.

- Ministers can divert the questions to other departments

- Ministers might hide behind the concept of Collective Responsibility, where all agrees that the Minister cannot be asked individually

(iii) Debates

-There are three types of debate; namely; daily adjournment debate for the debate of any matter; emergency adjournment debate for important issues; and debates in the passing of a Bill

- Debates are to compel the government to explain and defend its policies and decisions

Why it is not effective

- The House is controlled by the ruling party. Therefore, time may not be allocated for debates on certain issues

- If a certain issue to be debated is too difficult to be answered, then the government will hide under Collective Responsibility or Public interest immunity

- Most of the time, the Dewan is nearly empty. Thus, the debates will not be effective

-Government passes motions to cut short debating time through guillotine motion, kangaroo motion and closure motion

-Debates are not done properly, since the ruling party tends to defend their own Bill

Reforms

(i) Select Committees

- Should be given the power to compel Ministers to answer their questions

- Should be given power to call in experts to assist them in certain issues

-The reports prepared by the SC should be compulsorily debated in the Dewan

-More Bills should be sent to the SC

(ii) Question time

- Questions should be on a first come first serve basis either on orally or written reply, not at the discretion of the Parliament

- Parliament should have more sittings and allocate more time for Question Time.

- There should be a Prime Ministerial question time, like the one in UK

- Ministers should not be allowed to hide behind Collective Responsibility

(iii) Debates

- More time should be set aside for debates

- MPs should not be allowed to leave before the end of the session

(iv)Other reforms

- Improve the Electoral System, because the current system gives too many seats to the ruling party, which is the main factor behind the ineffectiveness of Parliament.

- Remove the Party Whip. MPs are not members of the Executive, so they should not compulsorily support their own Bills.

- Kangaroo motion, Guillotine motion and closure motion should be abolished

- More emphasis should be put on Individual Responsibility

- The number of parliamentary sittings should be increased.

Ministerial Responsibility

Definition of Ministerial Responsibility

- Wade and Bradley defined the doctrine as “Within a democratic state, those who govern should be accountable, or responsible, to whom they govern”.

-Marshall and Moody defined it as “Ministers are responsible for the general conduct of government…”

Collective Responsibility

- Lord Salisbury defined the convention as “It is only the principle that absolute responsibility is undertaken by every member of the Cabinet, who after a decision is arrived at, remains a member of it…”

- It simply means that the members of the Cabinet as a whole must publicly support all governmental decisions made in the Cabinet, even if they do not privately agree with them. The government must, as a whole, be accountable and answerable to the Parliament.

To uphold such a concept, they must uphold three concepts of collective responsibility, namely;

(i) All ministers must speak with one voice, there must be unanimity

(ii) If there is a vote of no-confidence against the government, the whole government must resign

(iii) There must be cabinet secrecy

 (i) All ministers must speak with one voice, there must be unanimity

- Collective responsibility cannot be upheld if the Ministers do not speak in one voice.

- It is a political necessity. If the government is always differing in public, then it will not be possible for them to run the country properly because they will lose the respect of the people.

-Without one voice, the government will probably collapse in no time.

 -Under this principle, ministers can still differ with each other over policy matters but it can only be done privately.

Is this concept being upheld in Malaysia?

-Yes. The governments in Malaysia and in UK are both speaking in one voice. In Malaysia, the Executive is always speaking in one voice but not as often in UK because currently they are a coalition government.

- Because of the concept of one voice, sometimes the government becomes not accountable. This principle destroys individual responsibility. Whenever a problem arises, the minister will always use the concept of collective responsibility to hide from being accountable individually.

- This concept also lessens accountability in Parliament. The MPs can always hide behind collective responsibility whenever they are questioned about a Bill being passed.

- The MPs always cover and answer for each other whenever possible, especially during question time.

- This concept is training Ministers to be ‘Yes-Man’, since they cannot say no even if he or she really disagrees with a policy.

- The PM becomes more powerful because other ministers cannot disagree with what he says.

- However, at the end of the day, the Executive still needs to speak in one voice. If they don’t, then the government would be unstable.

- The PM’s decisions are always correct. This is because the PM is an elected head, thus, he is supposed to have the support of the majority. Unfortunately, over-abusing this concept destroys individual responsibility.

(ii) If there is a vote of no-confidence against the government, the whole government must resign

- For example, if an opposition party becomes the government and decides to put forth a Bill important to its party or related to its manifesto and it was defeated, then the PM with his Cabinet must resign. It also uses the principle of one voice since the government must resign as a whole.

- It is a good rule that the Executive must resign collectively because they must be responsible and accountable to the Parliament. If the Parliament loses confidence in them, then the people also loses confidence in them, since the Parliament is the representative of the people.

Is this concept working in Malaysia?

- In Malaysia, it will never happen. Although it is a good procedure in reality, it is unlikely that it will be used in Malaysia.

- This is because the Parliament is dominated by the Executive. More than half of the MPs belong to the ruling party.

- Besides that, if Party Whip is used, then all of the MPs from BN must support the Bill, thus, the Bill will never be defeated.

-This 2^nd concept does not really work partially because of the electoral system.

- The First Past The Post (FPTP) system used in Malaysia encourages the government to have too many seats in Parliament. When the government is too strong, the people will suffer. Other parties are too weak, and so they are regarded as not chosen by the people.

- Therefore, collective ministerial responsibility is not upheld.

- Party Whip is another bad system that allows the Executive to dominate the Parliament. In Malaysia, the Party Whip ensures that Bills containing policies from the ruling party will go through as the MPs from the ruling party can only agree to the Bill.

- However, in France, the coalition party, politically unstable, is very good because they will be very accountable. Opposition will remove them straight away if they make faulty decisions, but will merely appreciate them if they made correct ones.

(iii) There must be cabinet secrecy

- Secrecy in Cabinet is necessary to a certain extent. Certain things discussed in Cabinet must not be heard by the people. Something that is injurious to national security has to be kept secret. For example, the amount of war vehicles owned by a country should not be made public.

- However, the government may sometimes hide behind this concept. Even when a certain thing is not related to national security, the government still insists that it is and refuses to discuss about it.

- For example, in question time, the Minister refuses to reveal things with the reason that it is national security.

- Duncan v Cammell Laird

A submarine sank during sea trials with the loss of 99 lives. The families of the sailors who had been killed in the disaster claimed damages from the builders, Cammell Laird. The House of Lords upheld a certificate issued by the Admiralty claiming Public Interest Immunity in relation to the plans of the submarine. Case was dismissed.

-Council for the Civil Service Unions v Minister for the Civil Service (GCHQ case)

The government made a decision that the people who work in GCHQ cannot join Unions. It would be injurious to national security. In 1984, the judge said that he will be the one deciding whether the matter is national security or not. The judge reviewed all of the evidence privately, and decided that it really is injurious to national security. After this case, courts were able to determine whether certain materials affect national security.

- Secrecy is bad sometimes because the government hides behind the concept and not to disclose certain things to the public. At least today, the judiciary in UK will be the one deciding whether it is public interest immunity or not.

Individual Ministerial Responsibility

- It means that ministers must be responsible to the Parliament on their conduct or the conduct of their departments.

-There are 4 aspects of individual responsibility that are not stated in the FC

(i) Personal Misconduct

-The general rule for personal misconduct is that ministers should resign, for example, sexual impropriety, gangsterism, corruption or etc.

John Profumo

He was found to have been in a sexual relationship with a prostitute, Christine Keeler. She was also found to have a close personal relationship with a Russian Naval at the Soviet Embassy. When questioned in the House of Commons, Mr. Profumo lied. When the truth emerged, he resigned office.

Chua Soi Lek

He was the Health Minister at the time. He was caught having sex with a young woman in a DVD that was widely circulated. As a result, he resigned from all political posts due to his misconduct.

Dato’ Anwar Ibrahim

He was the Deputy Prime Minister, and he was called to resign following allegations that he was involved in sodomy. He refused to resign.

(ii) Financial Impropriety

- This aspect can also be considered as a part of personal misconduct. The general rule is that a minister is supposed to resign due to financial impropriety.

John Belcher MP

In this case, a Tribunal of Inquiry was established to inquire into allegations of payments being made to John Belcher MP. He received gifts offered with a view to securing favourable treatment in relation to licences granted by the Board of Trade. He resigned office and his parliamentary seat as a result.

(iii) Departmental Error

Crichel Down Affair 1954

In this case, Crichel Down was compulsorily taken by Air Ministry. After the 2^nd World War, the land was transferred to the Ministry of Agriculture. A part of Crichel Down was owned by Mrs. Marten and her husband wanted to reclaim the land. He asked the Agriculture Land Commission whether he could buy back the land but they claimed they have no power to investigate. Mr. Marten brought the matter with his MP, resulting in a request of a report from the Land Commission. The official in charge was told not to approach the previous owners and to treat the matter as highly confidential. The report was full of inaccuracies. Mr. Marten was informed of the decision and advised the Ministry that he would rent the whole land. Mr. Marten’s letters went unanswered and pressed for a public inquiry. The inquiry found inaccuracies in the report and inefficiency in handling the matter. Later, the minister, Thomas Dugdale, accepted responsibility and resigned.

Falklands Crisis

The minister in this case wrongly called back a battleship from Falklands Island and it was taken over by Argentina. It almost triggered a war between UK and Argentina. 3 people were made to resign, Lord Carrington, the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Luce and Mr. Atkins but the minister did not resign.

- Samy Vellu’s department made a lot of errors, especially in relation to the collapse of the Highland Towers. However, he did not resign at all.

(iv) Policy Error

- It means that ministers pass wrong policies and causes loss to the people. However, ministers generally do not resign over this concept. This is because Ministers usually hide behind the concept of collective responsibility whenever they made a policy error.

- The decision to revert the teaching of Mathematics and Science to English and eventually back to Bahasa Malaysia clearly shows a policy error, but no ministers resigned.

Suez Canal Affair

The Labour government wanted to grow peanuts in Tanzania as a contribution to the African and British economies. Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money were used. However, the plan failed and the Minister in charge did not resign.

Why isn’t the concept of ministerial responsibility really working in Malaysia?

- Electoral system (FPTP) favours the ruling party. The ruling party can always hide behind collective responsibility, to speak with one voice, whenever they make an error.

- This concept is still new in Malaysia, Ministers do not understand that they must be responsible and accountable to the people

Judiciary

            Basically, judiciary refers to the system of courts in the country. Its main function is to interpret and apply the law. The judiciary is also responsible to uphold the constitution, by reviewing any Acts of Parliament that is against the constitution. It is also important in upholding citizen’s rights and liberties. The judiciary also upholds the concept of the rule of law and separation of powers.

Independence

- Lord Browne-Wilkinson:‘A Judge should be free from any pressure from the Government or anyone else as to how to decide any particular case’

- Tun Mohamed Suffian: ‘Judges are given independence not to bolster their ego but in order to allow them to serve members of the public whose disputes with each other or with the Government should be determined impartially by persons who are free to decide in accordance with the law and their conscience’

- It basically means the ability of a Judge to decide cases on their merits, free of any pressure

Neutrality

- it means the judges’ ability to make decisions without any favour for either parties in all aspects including race, colour, sex, political ideologies, religion and etc.

- There are a few methods to instill neutrality into judges, for e.g. send judges for courses, appoint judges from a bigger cross-section of the community, establish a special judicial appointments commission and etc. However, in reality, none of these will actually be effective.

Protection of Judicial Independence and Neutrality through the FC

- Judicial appointments. Although the appointments of Judges are placed in the hands of the Executive, its decision are deeply informed by judicial advice as well as constitutional and diplomatic considerations. Under Art.123, only those with appropriate legal training and experience can be appointed.

- Security of tenure. A judge can only be removed by the YDPA on grounds specified under Art.125(3) for either a breach of the judge’s code of ethics or inability due to infirmity of body, mind or other cause, to discharge his functions. A special tribunal must recommend the removal.

- Guarantee of remuneration. Remuneration of judges is to be charged directly from the Consolidated Fund. Under Art.125(7), it is payable every year without the need for parliamentary debate.

- Prohibition of public discussion on Judges’ conduct. Discussion is only allowed if at least a quarter of the members of the House enter a motion. Discussion is prohibited at state legislative assemblies. Art.126 and the Court of Judicature Act give Judges’ power to punish for contempt of court.

- Guarantees against packing. The FC specifies the number of judges that can be appointed to each court to prevent the Executive from overruling unfavourable precedents by packing the courts with judges sharing similar political views.

Judicial Problems (Article 121)

- The FC vested ‘judicial power’ in the two High Courts before 1988 Judicial Crisis.

- The new Art.121(1A) only provides for the jurisdiction of the High Courts, Federal Court and the Court of Appeal without the mention of ‘judicial power’.

- The judiciary now is no longer the only one who may have judicial powers. If one day another institution is formed by the government to play certain functions of a judiciary, that new institution is valid. The FC in Malaysia and the constitution in Jamaica and Ceylon did not expressly mention the term ‘judicial power’.

- The Queen v Liyanage and Hinds v The Queen

Both cases involved the setting up of special courts which had not previously existed, and in both cases the Privy Council ruled that the statute establishing the court was unconstitutional because it interfered with the judicial power, impliedly vested by the Constitution in the ordinary courts of law. The principle established in these cases is that any court which is given judicial powers must be staffed by judges appointed in the usual constitutional manner, or else must be answerable to the ordinary courts as a court of inferior jurisdiction.

- PP v Datuk Yap Peng

In this case, Section 418A of the Criminal Procedure Code which allowed the Attorney General to transfer cases from one court to another, was held to encroach on the judicial power of the courts, vested exclusively in the judiciary under the then Article 121(1) of the Constitution. The decision was rendered ineffective by the Constitution Amendment Act 1988 (Act A704) which amended Article 121(1) to define judicial powers narrowly and amended Article 145 to enlarge the powers of the Attorney General.

- In America, the judicial power is expressly mentioned in the constitution.

-Marbury v Madison

The Supreme Court struck down Judiciary Act of 1789 as it was illegal and unconstitutional. The Court carried out judicial review for the first time.

- Article 121(1A) also led to the introduction of the Syariah Courts. It is unique since all modern democratic countries have only one system of courts dealing with all matters.

- It is stated in Article 121(1A) that High Courts shall have no jurisdiction in respect of any matter within the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts. The issue arising from this is whether the High Court can review the decisions of the syariah courts and whether the introduction of Syariah courts have created a new system of courts giving rise to two different systems of courts. Another question that arises is whether a dispute between a Muslim and a non-Muslim is subject to the civil court or the syariah court.

- According to Harding, the High Court still has jurisdiction to review the decisions of the Syariah courts as major readjustments would be necessary if the amendments intended to create a new legal system.

Judiciary Crisis 1988

            Before 1988, the Judiciary in Malaysia carried out judicial review frequently and struck down laws or decisions which were unconstitutional such as in Mamat bin Daud and Datuk Yap Peng. However, some of the laws struck down were made by the PM, Tun Dr. Mahathir. He was not pleased and he made speeches attacking the Judiciary. The opposition leader cited him for contempt of court when he complained to Time magazine about the Judiciary’s obstructiveness. The case was dismissed but the Supreme Court gave the PM a tutorial on separation of powers. The Lord President replied to the executive criticisms in speeches and from the bench. In the 1987 UMNO elections, the UMNO leadership had been challenged from within the party. Team A which comprises of Dr.Mahathir and Ghafar Baba narrowly defeated Team B comprising of Tengku Razaleigh and Datuk Musa. 11 Team B members filed a suit challenging the legality of the elections as Team A’s 30 branches sent people to vote even though the branches were not registered. Under the Societies Act, UMNO was declared as illegal and the elections were therefore invalid. Then, Team B applied for the registration of ‘UMNO Malaysia’. The application was rejected by the Registrar because the old UMNO had not yet been deregistered and the name was too similar to the old party. Team A immediately deregistered and registered a new party, ‘UMNO Baru’ and the application was granted. Team B proceeded to register ‘Semangat 46’. Parliament amended Societies Act to transfer assets from the old party to ‘UMNO Baru’. After the general election of 1990, BN still won with a two-thirds majority.

            After a meeting between judges was held, Lord President wrote to the YDPA to intervene and stop the accusations made by the Executive on the Judiciary. The YDPA was not happy and told the PM. PM asked YDPA if he could remove the Lord President and the YDPA assented if there are grounds to do so. PM advised the appointment of a Tribunal and Lord President Tun Salleh was then suspended pending the report of the Tribunal. Tun Salleh objected to the Tribunal because the Chairman was the second in line to be the Lord President and it went against natural justice. The Tribunal rejected his argument and Tun Salleh applied to the High Courts to prevent the Tribunal from proceeding for its unconstitutionality. Later, Tun Salleh renewed his application for a stay before the Supreme Court and the five Supreme Court Justices had taken it upon themselves to hear the case granting Tun Salleh an order restraining the Tribunal from submitting its report. However, those five judges were themselves suspended and another Tribunal was formed to investigate charges against them. Subsequently, the Tun Salleh Tribunal reported recommending his dismissal and the Tribunal on the five judges also reported. Finally, Tun Salleh and two other judges were removed from office.

PM and Cabinet

Appointment of PM

- The PM is appointed by the YDPA exercising his discretion in Article 40(2) of the FC.

- The YDPA is expected to appoint the PM from the Dewan Rakyat who is in his judgement is likely to command the confidence of the majority of that House, Article 43(2) of the FC.

- The YDPA might have discretionary powers to appoint a PM during a hung Parliament. However, it has never happened in Malaysia as the ruling party has always secured a majority of seats in the Parliament. Thus, the legal position behind this is not fully certain.

-The YDPA’s power to appoint the PM is a mere formality, as he doesn’t have the power to choose.

- YDPA can appoint a temporary PM in his discretion if all Ministers happen to die together.

Dismissal of PM

- The FC is silent about the dismissal of the PM. However the Reid Commission did mention dismissal but only in the context of a PM that has lost the confidence of the House but nevertheless refuses to resign.

- The Commission gave the YDPA power to sack such a PM.

- Article 43(4) of the FC put the duty on a PM that has lost the confidence of the House to resign. The argument that the power to appoint includes the power to dismissal doesn’t apply, firstly, because the YDPA’s power to appoint is a mere formality, and secondly, it would run counter to Article 43(5) of the FC. Since, Malaysia is a democratic country, and the YDPA was not elected by the people, he should not be given the power to sack a PM.

- To support the argument on whether the YDPA can sack a PM under normal circumstances, reference to several decided cases have to be made. If the Constitution is silent on something, then we have to look at the prerogative power.

- In 1975, PM of Australia, Gough Whitlam lost in the vote of no-confidence, but he refused to resign. Then, the Queen of England directed the Governor General of Australia (Sir John Kerr) on her behalf to sack the PM of Australia and appoint the Opposition leader (Malcolm Fraser) as the temporary PM.

- Stephen Kalong Ningkan v Tun Abang Haji Openg & Tawi Sli

In this case, Stephen Kalong Ningkan was the Chief Minister (CM) of Sarawak. There were allegations that some MPs from his party went to the other party and Stephen no longer controls the majority of seats. Some said that Stephen no longer control the confidence of majority. However, he cannot be removed because there is no vote of no-confidence as he refused to call the Assembly to sit. The Governor couldn’t take it and sacked the CM, and the CM sued the governor in court. It was held that a Governor cannot sack a CM (Head of State cannot remove Head of Government under normal circumstances) without a vote of no-confidence.

- Adegbenro v Akintola (opposing view)

It was held that the withdrawal of support could be indicated outside the House and thus the head of state was justified in dismissing the head of government.

- In an earlier case, the Sultan of Perak (Azlan Shah) managed to remove the Chief Minister even without the vote of no-confidence. The Court of Appeal held that the Sultan can remove the CM. It is against the precedent case and against constitutionalism.

-However, Stephen Kalong Ningkan’s case should prevail because the CM is the people’s choice.

Powers of PM

            Why is the PM given so much power? The Prime Minister holds the Cabinet together and is supposed to ensure that the objectives of the Cabinet are achieved. The PM is required to maintain the responsibility and accountability of all ministers on an individual and collective level. The PM is also required to ensure that the Executive is able to administer the country through the formulation and implementation of effective policies. The PM is also an elected representative of the people, and he or she therefore needs to represent the majority in making decisions

- PM can appoint the entire Cabinet without any need for approval by Parliament or by his party, Article 43(2)(b).

- PM has the power to choose, switch, promote, demote and dismiss his colleagues and place them in order of seniority. He may create a new ministerial office or close one. He may transfer functions from one minister to another and even designate one of them to be the DPM.

- PM may require a minister to resign at any time for any reason he thinks fit. If the minister refuses to comply, the PM may advise the YDPA to dismiss him or her. In Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim v Perdana Menteri, the court held that the letter of dismissal need not come from the YDPA. It was sufficient for the Monarch to be informed before the PM dismisses his colleague

- PM can determine when the Cabinet shall meet and what to be discussed. He is entitled to say what issue shall be referred to him outside the Cabinet. Disputes between departments in the Cabinet may be resolved by his informal rulings.

- The PM is not bound by Cabinet advice. Many decisions are made by the PM alone or by him after consulting several of his favourite ministers.

- PM can create committees of the Cabinet, choose their membership, prescribe their terms of reference and give them decision-making power. He may preside over some committees

- PM may create an advisory body of outsiders to counsel him on any particular matter.

- PM chooses the senators who are appointed by the YDPA to the Senate under Art. 45(1) of the FC

- PM may give advice to summon, prorogue or dissolve the Dewan Rakyat. However, the YDPA may reject the advice on the dissolution of Parliament under Article 40(2)(b).

- PM figures prominently in the appointment of all important constitutional posts, including judges of superior courts, AG, Governors, Election Commission, and etc.

-PM enjoys substantial powers of patronage. If he does not give a political office to someone he wishes to reward, he may confer on him chairmanship of a statutory corporation or an advisory or consultative body, a royal commission and etc.

Control on powers (briefly)

- Although the PM enjoys wide discretionary powers, he is still accountable to the people as the people will elect the PM every four to five years.

- PM represents the nation in international visits for diplomatic relations. His conduct in ruling the country and overseas will affect the nation.

- The PM cannot continue to be in office if the Cabinet Ministers withdrew their support. Thus, he has to treat his colleagues with respect.

- The MPs may go against him by giving a vote of no-confidence, leading to the PM’s resignation.

- The PM is also subjected to administrative controls.