Backbenchers Club chairperson Shahrir Abdul Samad and I studied \’Government\’ as a subject during our Sixth Form days. It was an optional course for all Arts students for the Higher School Certificate of the Cambridge University in 1968. That was the favourite and best course of my entire schooling and education.
\’Governance\’ was the core of focus in Parliament last week, in a debate that my course-mate helped push for a decision by insisting on the immediate reinstatement of the Parliamentary Service Act (PSA) 1963. It had been repealed unilaterally in 1992 by the government, which had a majority in Parliament.
The debate over the \’control\’ of Parliament was a hot topic last week after Minister in the Prime Minister\’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz announced that a director-general would be appointed to oversee its management and financial affairs.
As protests grew, he later said the intention had not been to set up \”an office\”, but that he had been referring to \’the office\’ of a single administrator. A fairly senior PTD officer was then seconded to Parliament as its \’Head of Administration\’.
The MPs could not take this political gerrymandering anymore, and according to the press, those in the Dewan Rakyat – except for three front benchers who are members of the Executive – stood up when Shahrir called for a show of support for reinstatement of the PSA.
Philosophy for all
Governance describes the nature, distribution, and dispersal of power such that political decision-making is not lopsided or in favour of one group against those of others, and often smaller or marginalised groups in any democracy.
Good governance affects all levels of governance – local, corporate and national – as well as public, private or not-for-profit organisations.
Parliament is, however, the lighthouse exemplifying and extolling our values of governance. All organisations need good governance, whether the church or the army or the bureaucracy. Usually there is a designed distribution and segregation of power and authority to prevent the abuse of power.
In the model of democratic governance, political theory recommends almost absolute separation and segregation of power between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. The American model of constitutional democracy seeks such an almost absolute separation, but as is obvious from American politics, each arm of governance always tries to prevent undue control of one by the other. This system of checks and balances is what keeps any democracy alive and dynamic.
In the British system of parliamentary democracy, there is often the lack of such an absolute separation of powers, wherein the government of the day (the Executive) sometimes creates a cabinet portfolio to oversee either the judiciary or the legislature.
In the British Commonwealth it is not unusual to find a minister of justice, who influences the appointment of judges and other judicial commissioners.
In Malaysia, we have not only a de facto law minister in the PM\’s department but a de facto minister of Parliament as well. Between the two and with the effects of a very strong \’Executive government\” over the last two decades, according to Shahrir, Parliament has been reduced to a \’rubber stamp\’ of the government of the day. He believes that Parliament is the seat of power of all three arms for good governance.
Correct response
Parliament lends power to the government or the Executive, but the ultimate power of the people remains with Parliament, all the time, and especially between elections.
This explains the new vibrancy given to the role of Parliament, the backbenchers and the Public Accounts Committee over the last few months, especially since the Pak Lah Cabinet was set up.
For Parliament to recover her original role of the voice of the people between elections, then the coup de grace of the standing ovation speaks really of why the people gave the Pak Lah government such a huge mandate.
He promised a government of the people, for the people and by the people. He called this leadership style, \”work with me and not for me\”. He called Parliament the \’august body\’ and asked members of Parliament to reinstate the dignity and honour of the House.
The MPs have responded in right and accurate style. Well done, all MPs, good, bad and ugly; government and opposition, executive and backbenchers alike! You all have served this nation that we love well.
I applaud you for having chosen the path of transparency, openness and integrity to restore to Parliament the kind and quality of dialogue which will make us a developed country.
Build new model
I pray and hope that there will not be any reticence or reluctance on the part of the Executive (the cabinet) to hear the voice of the people and do the needful. I agree with my course-mate that we sdo not need too much discussion or even debate. Let us move in this much-needed direction.
As Professor Shad Faruqi has argued in a recent article, too much of \’Executive governance\’ will ultimately destroy whatever traces of good democratic governance we have already acquired in this country.
Let us, for the sake of our future generations, build a new, transparent and open kind of developing world democracy that is, without apology, still based on our own model of governance.
The developing world needs to believe in a newer model of governance but one not corrupted by the economic values of modern greed for money and power.
We can become the successful model for such governance, but we need to protect and preserve the good values of separation of the powers of governance.
We can afford such an experiment, especially when the Pak Lah Government has a 90 percent majority. Let us go for it. Is this not what growing as a democracy means?
