The first thing that Members of Parliament, irrespective of whether from ruling coalition or the Opposition, should do tomorrow is to unite on a common platform to redeem the honour, dignity and privileges of MPs by censuring Executive contempt and disrespect of Parliament in imposing humiliating Official Secrets Act (OSA) conditions on the Auditor-General’s final audit report on 1MDB when presented to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Not only is the Auditor-General’s final audit report of some 300 pages classified under the OSA, interfering with parliamentary privileges as to what Parliament intends to do about reports and documents presented to it which, in the process nullifies the principle of the supremacy of Parliament over the Executive, but even more serious, treat Members of Parliament as naughty school children prone to mischief and law-breaking who cannot be entrusted with state secrets!
It is the height of contempt of Parliament for the Executive to classify the Auditor-General’s final audit report on 1MDB as under the OSA although submitted to the PAC on Friday and later today, and what is even more humiliating, imposing the rule that PAC members cannot take home the Auditor-General’s 300-page final audit report, and PAC members can refer to the AG’s final audit report only in Parliament’s “strong-room”!
Why not lock the “cari makan” PAC Chairman, Datuk Hasan Arifin together with the 13 other PAC members in the Parliament “strongroom”, requiring to digest, understand and master the Auditor-General’s final audit report before they are allowed to leave the Parliament “strongroom”?
When Ministers have access to OSA reports and documents, are they allowed to take these reports and documents home or to their offices to read, digest, understand and master them or are they locked in a Cabinet “strongroom” where they must complete the reading and understanding of the OSA reports concerned?
Not allowing PAC members to take home copies of the Auditor-General’s final audit report to read, understand and digest them is an intolerable and unacceptable Executive humiliation of parliamentary honour, dignity and privileges which must be purged by a special Parliamentary motion tomorrow.
The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s Executive has got things upside down, for in a parliamentary democracy, the Executive is answerable to Parliament and not the other way round – Parliament answerable to Executive.
Najib’s premiership has not only undermined the doctrine of the separation of powers among the Executive, Parliament and Judiciary, there seems to be an attempt to reduce Parliament or at least the PAC into a department of the government!
Is the Speaker prepared to approve such a special motion tomorrow to uphold the dignity, honour and privileges of Members of Parliament from trespass, interference and intrusion from the Executive?