I read with sheer amazement how an MP from the opposition is able to misread a Standing Order, or pretend to misread the Standing Order in order to mislead the public.
Public Accounts Committee chairman YB Wong Kah Woh says Dewan Rakyat Speaker Datuk Seri Azhar Azizan Harun has the discretion to suspend Parliament’s Standing Orders to make the inquiry into Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief Tan Sri Azam Baki’s shareholding public.
Wong was referring to Standing Order 90(2) and said: “The speaker is not right. He has the power to initiate the suspension of the Standing Orders by referring the same to the House for a decision pursuant to Standing Order 90(2).”
Let us read for ourselves Standing Order 90(2): “A question, the object or effect of which may be to suspend any Standing Orders of the House, shall be proposed only either after notice given, or with the consent of Tuan Yang di-Pertua who shall immediately without debate put the question.”
Standing Order 90(2) clearly does not give the speaker any discretion to suspend the Standing Orders relating to the PSC, nor does it give the speaker the right to initiate the suspension of such Standing Orders.
A member of the House must initiate the question and only then may the speaker put it to the House for a vote.
In short, 90(2) merely allows any MP to propose a rule to be suspended, and certainly not for the speaker to make such a proposal.
It says the speaker can allow the question to be put without notice to a vote in the House.
That is the extent of Standing Order 90(2). No more, no less. But Wong has added salt and pepper, or lacks the comprehension to interpret them properly.
Therefore, I put it to the honourable member of Ipoh Timor that his reading of the Standing Order 90(2) is incorrect, and he owes the speaker and the general public an apology immediately for his false accusations. – The Vibes, January 17, 2022
Datuk Willie Mongin is Puncak Borneo MP and Plantation Industries and Commodities deputy minister II
