Tuesday 9 September 2014

SUPREMACY OF THE WILL OF THE RAKYAT OVER THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCH IS NON-NEGOTIABLE


    • Photo: The question that is being raised in cafes, in warongs, in mamak stalls and in char koay teow stalls..... not only in SELANGOR, but elsewhere throughout the country by those supporting BOTH sides of politics.















    1. Photo: ITS TIME THE RAKYAT SPEAKS UP LOUD AND CLEAR IN THIS CRISIS IN THE MEDIA : IS IT THE RAKYAT RULING THE COUNTRY OR IS IT THE RULER ??? THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY DECISION OF THE RAKYAT MUST, AND MUST ALWAYS REMAIN SUPREME OVER THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCH. That was how Malaysia was founded and established in 1957. We are a nation OF THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, BY,THE PEOPLE, NOT BY THE CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHS. http://s.m5.malaysiakini.com/news/273964.html The SELANGOR PALACE said a state assemblyperson's majority support in the House is NOT the sole consideration for appointing the menteri besar. Therefore, the ruler might even choose a state rep from Pakatan Rakyat who is not on the lists of potential candidates submitted to the palace. "As the power to appoint the menteri besar is the sultan's prerogative, therefore his highness will look at the names of other state assemblypersons in Pakatan who to the sultan's mind enjoys majority support in the state assembly," said the ruler's private secretary Mohamad Munir Bani in a statement today. He said since majority support is not the sole criteria, the palace required more than two names from the respective parties in Pakatan as per convention. MEANWHILE.... http://s.m5.malaysiakini.com/news/273969.html Constitutional expert Abdul Aziz Bari has reiterated that the sole qualification for a menteri besar is whether he or she has majority support in the state assembly. "Even PERSONAL PREFERENCES OF THE RULER HAS NO PLACE" he added in a statement. “The only qualification for an MB - or PM or CM - is the majority. Gender, academic qualification, and even personal preference of the ruler, has no place,” he elaborated. Abdul Aziz said that even the condition that the MB must be “Malay and Islam” can be “set aside” in favour of a majority. Abdul Aziz was responding to a statement from the Selangor palace, which stated that the sultan might even choose a state rep not on the lists of potential candidates submitted by Pakatan Rakyat parties. The expert questioned why "law and practice" are "different" when it comes to Umno and Pakatan In a statement, Abdul Aziz said the same palace had, in 1997, accepted Abu Hassan Omar as the MB for the state even though he was a federal minister and a by-election was called specifically for Abu Hassan to be made as MB. "The law is the same and should be applied without discrimination," he said. "The way the palace dealt with the matter so far has made the law uncertain and this is not good," he added. He also reminded that gender discrimination has been “outlawed” under Article 8 of the federal constitution. "The notion of discretion must be understood in the parliamentary democracy framework," he added. "We are dealing with a monarchy within a parliamentary democracy framework," he said. RELATED ARTICLE: THE KEY CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION IS: WHO SHOULD DECIDE THE NEXT LEADER FOR SELANGOR STATE GOVERNMENT: THE SULTAN OR THE RULING COALITION PAKATAN RAKYAT? Before we answer the above question, perhaps we should ask ourselves: WHO SHOULD RULE THE COUNTRY? 1. THE MONARCH or 2. THE PEOPLE ? I think the answer should be pretty obvious. Ever since independence, we have been running elections one after another, during which we elect a ruling coalition to rule the country. Since it is the people who have decided who they want to rule the country, so the people are actually the real boss, and the ruling party is only an agent selected by the people to fulfil their aspirations. And the MONARCH's ROLE IS LARGELY CEREMONIAL, with certain privileges and discretions as prescribed in the constitution, as peculiar to Malaysia, under the ambit of the Westminister style of constitutional monarchy. Among such discretions is the monarch’s power to appoint the prime minister. Our Federal Constitution – Article 43(2)(a) read in conjunction with Article 40@)(a) – and which the state constitutions have mirrored, stipulate that the Yang di-Pertuan Agong has the discretion to appoint the prime minister FROM: “ A MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WHO IN HIS JUDGEMENT IS LIKELY TO COMMAND THE COMMAND OF THE CONFIDENCE OF THE MAJORITY OF THE MEMBERS OF THAT HOUSE". THE MONARCH's DISCRETION:WHAT IT MEANS It is in the interpretation of the word “discretion”, fromm which controversies have arisen. The Selangor Sultan’s press secretary Muhammad Munir Bani, when he said that the sultan had ordered each of the component parties of Pakatan Rakyat to submit more than two nominees for the MB post, claimed that the sultan has “absolute discretion” in appointing as the new menteri besar a person who he feels enjoys majority support in the state assembly. This implies that the sultan can appoint whom he likes, as long as he feels that the candidate has majority support in the assembly. However, most constitutional legal minds hold that the sultan’s discretion is LIMITED to its exercise within the context of ascertaining whether the candidate can command majority support in the assembly. In other words, when the ruling coalition has nominated a candidate clearly supported by the majority, the sultan has no more discretion to appoint someone else. The latter view must be correct, as we must appreciate that the quality and suitability of the leader to head the government is of utmost importance to, not only the ruling party, but also to the nation, particularly to the electorate who have elected the ruling party. For that reason, it is always the prerogative of the ruling party to decide who it wants to head the government. In fact, the right of the ruling party to choose its head of government, just as its right to rule, is part and parcel of the democratic system that we have adopted. This has been the practice in Malaysia since independence, and it is also the practice among parliamentary democracies all over the world, whether they are headed by constitutional monarchs or presidents. MISINTERPRETATION OF " DISCRETION" WILL CREATE CHAOS... WE CANNOT AFFORD THAT. Imagine the havoc that will ensue if the sultan’s decree is carried out to the letter, resulting in a potential nine or more nominees, and the sultan choses a low quality candidate in preference to Pakatan’s top choice. In addition to the ill-qualified menteri besar possibly running the government to the ground, such an appointment may create serious intra-party and inter-party frictions in Pakatan, thus ruining the coalition as well bringing disaster to the people of Selangor. Wouldn’t that be a gross injustice to the ruling coalition, and a betrayal of the electorate of Selangor? Not by the wildest of imagination, could it have been the intention of the founders of this nation, and the framers of the constitution, to create a constitution with such huge loophole as to plunge the country into chaos? Above all, the sultan’s decree, as conveyed by his press secretary Munir Bani, could not pass the test of rudimentary logic. Surely, there must be one candidate that enjoys the highest support in Pakatan, with the others ranking relatively low in its esteem. So, what is the logic of asking for relatively low-ranking candidates, knowing full well that if any of these are appointed, he or she will likely be rejected by the state assembly, in which event, the menteri besar appointment process will have to be re-run? Wouldn’t it be simple, common sense for the sultan to appoint someone nominated by the ruling coalition? In other words, is there an ulterior motive to reject Wan Azizah’s nomination, since she has already secured the support of the majority of the assemblypersons? - KIM QUEK





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