Besides having the need to reform the entire government machinery in order to reflect its professionalism and making it into a service-oriented corporation, the Parliamentary System in this country ought to undergo the reform as well.
As we can see, eventhough our country is practicing parliamentary democracy, our nation's parliament does not seem to be functioning as it was supposed to be. Yes, there are loopholes, a lot of loopholes in the current parliamentary system. People has been commenting that Malaysia is adopting a rubber-stamped parliamentary system which is only task to proposed and approve laws. Which means, the political parties who hold the majority number of seats in the parliament shall always be a winner and limited debates are only allowed in order to provide some "democratic avenue" to the Opposition bench to provide their views.
This is correct, having an absolute majority and having always got the powers to approve and amend laws or bills does not necessarily demonstrate that our parliamentary system is sound and democratic. It is insufficient. In a democratic parliamentary system, there are more to be demonstrated in order to show to the people the transparent way of policies being decide and not dictate.
Tabling of laws and bills
When a governing party intends to table a law or bill in the parliament, the method which has been carried out were, having those books or paperwork being published and then distributed them to respective members of parliament by just putting at each of the parliamentarians' sitting positions' desks. At times, these proposed laws and bills are provided earlier but sometimes there are only provided at the last minute.
For example, the Peaceful Assembly Act, the amendments of the University and University Colleges Act (UUCA), Election Offences Act, Security Offences Act and so on were done in a rush prompting many members of parliament to complain that they do not even have the sufficient time to review and to prepare their feedbacks on those proposed laws and bills. In the end those laws and bill are simply being approved by hand-vote of majority from the ruling party's bench. So, are such practices called democracy when members of parliament are simply not been given the sufficient time to review and debate on those subject prior to the approval in parliament? This means, the law was not collectively approved but instead it was approved simply because the majority said so.
This is call, limited democracy.
Parliamentary Select Committees
As at today, the practice of establishing a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) was only being carried out whenever there are mounted pressures from certain parties or groups to make an issue into that of public interests or to bring up some matters to the attention of the parliament, such as cleaning up the electoral rolls currently being managed by the Election Commission (EC) and the Lynas Advance Material Plant (LAMP) project in Pahang.
Right now, there is only one permanent PSC overseeing the accounting and audits onto the government ministries, departments and agencies, which is called the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The other parliamentary-based committees which are ineffective or even inactive which are still functioning only in name only, are the Selection Committee, Standing Orders Committee, House Committee and Privileges Committee.
There are no other PSC which were supposed to be formed to oversee the various government ministries, departments and agencies, to scrutinize the appointment of government officials, proposed policies, proposed laws and bills and so on.
Just look at the other countries around us, take the nearest, Thailand and The Philippines, these two countries' parliament do have sufficient numbers of select committees to oversee the ministries and departments respectively.
When we have such PSC to oversee the performance of various ministries and departments, to scrutinize the appointment of its officials and to seek their commitments on their standards and ethics, only then the many problems and mismanagement as well as the bureaucratic within the government would be able to be reduced, thus promoting and enhancing a more professional nature in the government machinery to reflect it as people or service oriented organization readily to seek and serve.
We could see now, there are a lots of unnecessary or unaudited procurement of under-quality weaponry system, submarines, naval patrol vessels or any other defense equipment by the defense ministry if continue to be left unchecked, would lead our entire nation open to external threat. As such, there should be a PSC for Armed Services to vet and scrutinize the various activities and expenditures undertaken by the defense ministry in order to ensure our nation is readily prepared in its line of defense should any threat arise.
Now coming to the number of death in police custody, corruption and power abuse within the police force, RELA and so on. These agencies are under the jurisdiction of the home affairs ministry which is responsible of maintaining the security and public order of our nation. Then, a PSC on Public Security should be established to provide a check and balance onto what is happening in its various security agencies. From time to time the PSC would then summon the inspector-general of police or the director-general of RELA for some sort of parliamentary hearing in order to ensure things and security measures are in proper order.
Then, other important PSCs which should be established are Housing and Local Government; Health; Education; Finance; Transport; Communications; Trade and Industry; Agricultural; Human Resources; Foreign Affairs; Youth and Sports; Public Works and so on. What we are trying to elaborate here is the number of PSCs should be established in accordance to the number of portfolios or combined portfolios of ministries that the government has.
Malaysian Anti Corruption Agency (MACC) and Election Commission (EC)
Other than PSCs for ministerial portfolios, PSCs should also be established to oversee the sensitive agencies such as the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Election Commissions (EC) in order to ensure the effectiveness of these two organization in discharging their duties and responsibilities for the people and the nation.
Currently, both MACC and EC are under the direct jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's Department when they are supposed to be under the direct jurisdiction of and answerable to the parliament. By doing this only the people would be able to cast away their doubts on the actual impartiality of these two important agencies tasked in combating corruption and the running of general elections respectively.
Reform to Modernize, not Westernize
In many occasions, the Barisan Nasional (BN), particularly the dominant component party, Umno likes to compare modernization with westernization. Actually, these two words have complete two different meaning. Umno likes to confuse people on the Opposition's reform agenda with bringing in western methods which would undermine the ethnicity, culture and the religions in this country.
Whatever they label as westernization are wrong. Reform is not the purpose to westernize but to modernize. In gearing up our nation for the next phase, it is important that the government and businesses seeks for modernization in order to improve their service and efficiencies.
Just look at these countries, like New Zealand, Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Korea, Japan and even The Philippines, their parliaments, national legislative assemblies or congress do consist of so many portfolio-based select committees to oversee their governments' day to day administrations and activities and to ensure running of these departments and agencies are free from both political interference or influences thus promoting professional and effective service to their people at large.
That why, when you see the ruling parties of these countries change more frequently then ours, these nations are still running effectively and there are not much impact at all on these countries' economy and businesses. It is because the civil service sectors has been fully impartial and professional in discharging their responsibilities to the people and the nation irrespective of any political presence.
This is only a short commentary and proposal on how to reform and modernize our nation's parliamentary system, there are lot more to do in order to enhance the other parts within the system. In doing this, we need to seek some good examples as reference.
For those who wanted to further understand the definition of this commentary and proposal, you may log into the government websites of those countries which we had mentioned herein.
