PETALING JAYA: Parliament should introduce procedures to allow for the impeachment of prime ministers, Senate president Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said.
Wan Junaidi, a former law minister, said Malaysia currently lacks the ability to impeach prime ministers, unlike countries such as the UK, which impeached Tony Blair in 2004.
A bipartisan group of British MPs had tabled a motion to impeach Blair but the motion was never debated by the House of Commons as the MPs’ parties forbade them from signing the motion.
Blair was the UK’s prime minister from 1997 to 2007.
“We don’t have (impeachment procedures). It should be introduced. It was done in England in the 1800s,” Wan Junaidi said at a forum titled “Political Stability in a Hung Parliament”
While MPs across the divide are allowed to submit motions of no-confidence in the prime minister, he said there was no procedure to table or move for a motion of impeachment, adding that a no-confidence motion would never see the light of day because the government dictates the agenda of Dewan Rakyat proceedings.
“Of course the government will tell the minister (in charge of parliamentary affairs) not to (allow the motion to be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat).
“(Even if) the leader of the opposition were to table that motion, they will be subject to the general rule that the government’s affairs must be given priority. Then this motion will never see the light of day,” he said.
Wan Junaidi said an impeachment motion would be tabled as a private member’s bill but should be given some allowances for an MP to table the motion.
He acknowledged that those who want to table such a motion may not be successful, but what is more important is that MPs have the chance to do so.
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