Seven years ago in December 2001, when Fong Po Kuan, as first-termer DAP MP for Batu Gajah, was suspended for six months without pay for publicly criticising the Speaker, I was in Europe.
I issued an immediate statement in London on Dec. 11, 2001 before the motion to penalise Po Kuan was debated and another statement on my return to Malaysia.
These two statements of December 2001 are reproduced below after the Malaysiakini report “Speaker warns Kit Siang over blog posting”:
Speaker warns Kit Siang over blog posting Fauwaz Abdul Aziz | May 27, 08 12:14pm Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia has warned Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) to correct remarks in his blog which lambasted deputy speaker Ronald Kiandee for rejecting his motion on Sabah illegal immigrants. Should Lim fail to do so, he could be liable to disciplinary action similar to that instituted in the past against fellow DAP parliamentarians Karpal Singh (Bukit Gelugor) and Fong Po Kuan (Batu Gajah). They had been suspended after being critical of the speaker outside the House in previous parliamentary sessions. Pandikar also told Lim to make corrections to his press statement on the issue, which was similar to his blog posting. “If you do not correct your blog (post) and media statement, I will be forced to bring attention to the actions taken (against Fong previously),” Pandikar said yesterday. Last Thursday, Kiandee had rejected Lim’s motion for an amendment to the motion of thanks for the royal address by calling for the establishment of a royal commission of inquiry into the presence of illegal immigrants in Sabah. In dismissing the motion, Kiandee said it was irrelevant and disrespectful to the King: “It is most inappropriate to table this motion now because it is rude to say thank you but with a condition at the same time.” However, Lim argued there had been previous occasions in which such motions of thanks were amended. “Kiandee cannot be more wrong when he said that it was not proper and ‘tidak sopan’ to amend the motion of thanks,” he said. Lim argued that Kiandee had “acted out of ignorance” of established parliamentary conventions in rejecting the motion given that an amendment to a motion of thanks for the royal address had been made by him on Oct 12, 1982, although it was voted on and rejected the next day. Kiandee ‘misused and abused’ Parliament rules Lim further claimed that Kiandee had “misused and abused” the Standing Orders and that he owes a public apology to the people. Yesterday, however, Pandikar told Lim that there is a significant difference between the motion he tabled in 1982 and the motion he sought to table last week. While the earlier motion had begun with the words dan dengan ambil ingatan (while remembering that), last week’s motion had started with the words “by adding the following words to resolve”, Pandikar noted. In other words, said Pandikar, while the 1982 motion was ‘subsidiary’ to the original motion that Lim sought to amend, last week’s motion was “substantive”. Lim disagreed, saying that nothing in his motion was irrelevant to the original motion of thanks. Sabahans reduced into a minority Kit Siang’s motion to debate the illegal immigrants issue last Friday, if allowed, would have been an acid test for Sabah backbenchers. It came in the wake of rumours that some of the 24 of the ruling Barisan Nasional MPs in Sabah would defect to the opposition over their unhappiness on a number of issues including the lack of action in curbing illegal immigrants in the state. Incidentally, both Kiandee, who is three-term MP for Beluran, and former minister Pandikar are from Sabah. According to Lim, the 30-year problem has reduced Sabahans into a minority in their own home state. There has been serious allegations that illegal immigrants from neighbouring Philippines and Indonesia have been given identity cards by the authorities to enable them to vote in elections. There are conflicting accounts from official and unofficial sources on the exact number of illegal immigrants in the state. Most, however, agree that the number is around 750,000, outnumbering the local Sabahans.
(1) Media Statement in London, 11th December 2001:
Rais’ motion against Fong most unreasonable and doubly discriminatory – political and gender – and should be an eye-opener to Malaysians why it is necessary to demand reforms and democratisation of Parliament (London, Tuesday): The motion standing in the name of the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Dr. Rais Yatim against DAP MP for Batu Gajah, Fong Po Kuan, is most unreasonable and doubly discriminatory – political and gender – and should be an eye-opener to Malaysians why it is necessary to demand reforms and democratisation of Parliament if parliamentary democracy is not to degenerate into a farce. , Rais’ motion is most unreasonable and palpably the act of a bully because he has no intention to allow for a full investigation as to whether Fong had acted in a manner which was clearly a breach or abuse of parliamentary privilege – for if so, then the matter should be referred to the Committee of Privileges for a quasi-judicial inquiry and finding – as is the established parliamentary tradition and convention in all other Commonwealth Parliaments in such cases. Instead, Rais is only interested in a contest of numbers in Parliament, supremely confident that the brute two-thirds parliamentary majority of the Barisan Nasional will bring him victory in his game of parliamentary numbers as the BN MPs can even declare black as white and injustice as justice – but this is not just law but the law of the jungle! Rais’ motion is also unreasonable because he made two false claims that the lawful way which should be acted on by Fong (cara yang sah yang patut dilakukan) was to move a substantive motion under Standing Order 43 to review the Speaker’s motion and not to make “baseless” statements on the Speaker’’s ruling. Firstly, the Speaker, Tun Mohamad Zahir Ismail has rendered Standing Order 43 irrelevant, null and void in his 19 years as five-term Speaker as never once before had he allowed a substantive motion under Standing Order 43 to be debated on the floor of Parliament. Zahir should present a report to Parliament on the number of times notices had been given for substantive motions under Standing Order 43 to review the Speaker’s decision – and why there had not been a single time in the past 19 years since 1982 when he was Speaker where permission had been given for such a motion to be debated? As Standing Order 43 is a dead letter, completely obsolete and meaningless, this reason cannot be used and held against Fong – for it provides no meaningful remedy whatsoever to review the wrong rulings of the Speaker. Secondly, Fong’s criticisms against the Speaker’s ruling was not “baseless” but sound, objective and fair. Or is Rais seriously asserting that the Speaker enjoys an immunity which even judges do not have – that his decisions just cannot be criticised, even if the criticisms can be proved to be right, just and fully justified? If so, we are establishing not a parliamentary democracy but a feudal oligarchy. DAP can make out an iron-clad case that Fong’s criticisms of the Speaker’s ruling to reject her motion of urgent, definite public importance on the Certificate in Practice (CLP) examination marks-tampering was 100 per cent correct and justified. The Speaker had rejected Fong’s motion on 4th December 2001 on the ground that the DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Kerk Kim Hock had already tried earlier to move a similar motion which was rejected, but the Speaker was wrong as Kerk’s motion was because of the CLP examination paper leak scandal while Fong was referring to a completely different scandal – that of marks-tampering. In her statement, which is now being used by Rais to suspend her for six months without parliamentary allowances, Fong said the Speaker had abused his discretionary powers in rejecting her motion. Have the Speaker, Ministers and government leaders developed “egg-shell” reputations which cannot stand up to robust and vigorous criticisms, that they must resort to the brute parliamentary majority of the Barisan Nasioal to silence the Opposition? Rais’ motion is doubly discriminatory against the Opposition and women MPs – as Rais had showed no concern whatsoever when BN MPs abused their parliamentary privileges and dishonoured Parliament by using four-letter words and showed indecent signs – and worse still, against women MPs. Why has Rais allowed BN men MPs to get away scot-free with such unparliamentary and disgraceful conduct, which were clear abuses of parliamentary privileges – while coming down so harshly and unfairly on Fongt? Is Rais prepared to commission a public opinion poll as to whom the Malaysian people think more deserving of parliamentary censure and discipline – whether it is Fong or the Barisan Nasional men MPs who used tfour-letter words or showed indecent signs in Parliament? All women MPs, whether Barisan Nasional, Barisan Alterrnative and DAP should unite to protest against Rais’ motion which is the most palpable form of gender discrimination against a woman MP in Parliament since the 1999 general elections.
(2) Media Statement in Penang on 15.12.2001:
Zahir should personally remedy the gross miscarriage of justice in the Fong Po Kuan case where Parliament did not become the highest court but the highest kangaroo court of the land by taking steps to rescind the motion suspending Fong by six months without pay (Penang, Saturday): I have been away from the country for the past nine days, in Oslo to attend the 10th anniversary celebrations of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi and the annual meeting of PDBurma – the international network of political leaders promoting democracy in Burma – and in London speaking to the LSE Malaysia Club 2001/2002 at the London School of Economics and Political Science and meeting Malaysians and students in London. When I was overseas, I had maintained contact with developments back home principally through the Internet, especially the online media – and the biggest development undoubtedly was the vindictive and petty-minded motion by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Dr. Rais Yatim on the last sitting of the 2002 Budget meeting on Tuesday, December 11, 2001 suspending the DAP MP for Batu Gajah, Fong Po Kuan for six months without pay for publicly criticising the Speaker, Tun Zahir Mohamad Ismail, for rejecting her motion of urgent, definite public importance on the multi-layered Certificate in Practice (CLP) examinations scandal. However, I was truly shocked when I came home yesterday and read the print media which proved beyond a shadow of doubt of the gross miscarriage of justice in the Fong Po Kuan case, and in particular, the gross impropriety of Zahir in blatant breach of the most fundamental rule of natural justice of not being a judge of his own cause. A day before Rais’ motion was debated in Parliament, and before MPs could independently and impartially decide whether the youngest, woman and opposition MP in Parliament had committed any breach of parliamentary privilege, Zahir had already prejudged the issue and trumpeted to the world that Fong was guilty of insulting him as Speaker and should be punished. The Star of December 11, 2001 carried a report with the following heading:”Motion against Fong to deter abuse of Chair” which quoted Zahir as saying that the motion against Fong was “to stop other members from disparaging the Dewan and the Chair”. Zahir told reporters that Fong was not the only MP to have questioned the integrity of the Dewan and accused him of having “abused my power”. He said: “That’s why we have to put a stop to them abusing the Chair. The position of the Speaker is equivalent to the highest court in the country and the Chair is like the judge.” New Straits Times of the same day, under the heading, “Speaker defends motion to suspend Batu Gajah MP”, alleged that Fong’s criticism of him as Speaker was tantamout to contempt and said that Fong should be suspended if she refused to apologise to the House. From Zahir’s public remarks, it was clear that he had stepped down from the Speaker’s chair and entered the parliamentary ring to accuse and pre-judge Fong of having committed breach of privilege which warranted an unprecedented six-month suspension without pay. But Zahir has overlooked the fact that however elevated the position of Speaker, it does not confer on him the right, power or prerogative to be the prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in one. It was precisely to prevent the tyranny of the Speaker that there is the parliamentary tradition, convention and practice to have a Committee of Privileges to inquire into any breach of parliamentary privilege, whether alleged by a Member of Parliament or the Speaker himself, after a full and thorough hearing. But in Fong’ case, the Speaker had not only stepped down from the Speaker’s Chair and entered the parliamentary ring to be a “boxer” himself, he had arrogated to himself the powers of prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in one! Rais’ motion did not allow for any parliamentary inquiry as to whether Fong had committed any parliamentary privilege, but was to stage a kangaroo court to show off the brute strength of the mindless Barisan Nasional parlamentary majority to rubber-stamp a decision which had been taken even before the parliamentary debate. Zahir should ponder and personally remedy the gross miscarriage of justice in the Fong Po Kuan case where Parliament did not become the highest court but the highest kangaroo court of the land. He should have the humility to admit his grave error in misusing his powers as Speaker, actuated by his own personal feelings, which has made December 11, 2001 a day of shame and dishonour for the Malaysian Parliament, as well as sullied his five-term Speakership, review what he had done and undertake to remedy the grave miscarriage of justice to Fong by ensuring that the first item of business when Parliament reconvenes in March is to restore justice and fair play to Fong by rescinding the December 11 motion suspending Fong by six months without pay.