Perak MB Nizar a modern day Jebat
The die is cast. The royal imprimatur has been given to BN to form the government.
I have to admit that when I first heard of Perak DUN speaker Sivakumar declaring the two froggie nests requiring by-elections because of the pre-signed resignation letters, I wasn’t impressed, more by what I saw as Sivakumar’s indecent haste.
I blogged on that in Legality of undated resignation letters by MPs/ADUNs? where I stated: there’s legal precedence that the courts in a Sabah case had rejected the legality of such undated resignation letters by MPs and ADUNs.
But after reading Malik Imtiaz Sarwar’s Making sense of the Perak controversy I began to have second thoughts.
Malik is one bloke I admire lots and trust for his balanced and fair legal opinions. Briefly in point form (you can read his article yourself), Malik said:
(a) The speaker may be wrong but until he is shown to be wrong through valid process — either in the assembly (to the extent that such process is available) or through the courts — the speaker’s decision must stand.
my visitor Observer gave the same opinion, in fact much earlier than Malik.
(b) … it is apparent that the vacancy is established by reference to the position taken by the speaker. This is consistent with the basic principle of parliamentary democracy that it is the speaker who regulates the assembly.
(c) … it is not for the Election Commission to embark on a fact-finding or adjudicative process as, amongst other things, it does not have the power to do so. In denying the position the speaker has taken, the Election Commission is in effect asserting that that the speaker is wrong. The Election Commission cannot do so. If there is a question as to the correctness of the speaker’s position, then it must be challenged through proper channels.
Didn't the Perak Sultan, himself a former judge, see this?
(d) Seen from this perspective, this unprecedented and very curious action of the Election Commission regrettably raises questions as to its motives.
And you thought the last bloke was bad … eh?
(e) The Election Commission’s stance and the underlying events would afford sufficient cause for the menteri besar to request that the Sultan dissolve the assembly and call for fresh elections.
Obviously HRH thought differently … hmmm!
… because, as we have learnt from Malaysiakini No dissolution, new gov't to be sworn in, HRH the Sultan of Perak has seen fit to reject MB Nizar’s recommendation to have the Perak DUN dissolved.
Over at the blog of my good matey Susan Loone, she has posted If Perak falls into BN’s lap, it would be the Sultan’s doing… based on an email she received, which says [relevant extract]:
if the sultan perak does nothing about the power grab by bn, the sultan will be doing something, he will be sokong the devious najib/umno way of doing things. the sultan has to put a stop to the najib/umno hijacking of the state government, otherwise the reputation of the sultan and royalty in general will be destroyed.
I wouldn’t go as far as to accuse the Sultan of supporting BN, because then, the BN supporters could accuse HRH of supporting PR if he were to dissolve Perak DUN.
But I believe the Sultan has lost much respect, not because he rejected MB Nizar’s recommendation, but because MB Nizar has defied his instructions to step down as MB and transfer power to the BN.
I trust you realize the import of a Malay defying a royal command. If it had been Anwar Ibrahim, I would say poorah … but Nizar? Wow!
Nizar must have been so incensed by the BN coup d’etat and that HRH couldn't/didn't (woouldn't?) see the legality and logic of the issues as Malik Imtiaz Sarwar has, that it drove him to do the unimaginable of a Malay …
Read more at: http://ktemoc.blogspot.com/
