KUALA LUMPUR: The proposed five-year Fixed-term Parliamentary Act (FTPA) that requires the prime minister to retain the confidence of the Dewan Rakyat will not undermine the powers of the Yang di-Pertuang Agong, a reforms non-governmental organisation (NGO) said.
In response to former Dewan Rakyat speaker Azhar Azizan Harun who raised concerns about the "confirmatory vote of confidence" (CVC) being unconstitutional, the NGO said that this, sometimes known as an investiture vote, would still entail to proposed amendments to the Dewan Rakyat Standing Orders to streamline and enhance the procedures for motions of confidence and no-confidence and prioritise these motions.
In a statement, Projek Sama said that amendments to the Dewan Rakyat Standing Orders are necessary as when the prime minister loses confidence of the House, this would allow him to seek royal consent for early dissolution.
"Amendments to the Standing Orders are necessary because one of the two exceptions that allow the prime minister to seek royal consent for early dissolution is the loss of confidence.
"Hence, loss of confidence needs to be clearly defined and motions of confidence and no confidence must be prioritised. This would eliminate the shadowy practice of collecting and counting statutory declarations (SDs)."
It added that in this respect, Bersih (Gabungan Pilihan Raya Bersih dan Adil) had in 2022 commissioned parliamentary expert Maha Balakrishnan to produce two reports entitled "Unlocking the Powers of the Dewan Rakyat" and "Parliament in Government Formation", which can inform the public discussion.
Highlighting the flaw of the current provisions in the Standing Orders raised by Azhar, the NGO said it was well illustrated in his detailed explanation, in his then capacity as the Dewan Rakyat speaker to the then Gua Musang MP, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, on why the latter's motion of no-confidence against the then prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin could not be debated and voted upon.
"Published on Oct 15, 2020, Azhar's explanation boils down to one point; the government's business takes precedence over any other motions including motions of confidence and no-confidence by private members (opposition MPs and government backbenchers).
"In a nutshell, unless the government is willing to give way, a motion of no-confidence practically can never get to be debated. The power for parliamentarians to unseat the sitting government in that sense is illusory because it cannot be realised."
The statement added that Azhar wrote at length to explain that the speaker had no discretionary power to decide otherwise.
"Regrettably, the Standing Orders committee, always chaired by the speaker, never amended the Standing Orders to assign real power to the Dewan Rakyat to dismiss the government, since Azhar was the speaker till now."
"The FTPA can fix this flaw by prioritising motions of confidence and no-confidence, for all occasions, not limited to the appointment of a new prime minister," it said.