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.