(Versi BM)

In Parliament last year, the Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun proposed the setting up of nine select committees, namely those on liberty and constitutional rights; finance and economy; security; agencies under the Prime Minister’s Department; agriculture and domestic trade; infrastructure development; education; women and children affairs and social development; and health, science and innovation.

There is now to be an additional select committee on international affairs.

But none of these have been able to function effectively – not only because of the eight-month unconstitutional suspension of Parliament but because of outmoded, obsolete and antiquarian Dewan Rakyat Standing Orders which does not allow the parliamentary select committees to play a more meaningful and significant role to keep the government in check. Read the rest of this entry »