The document discusses several proposals to strengthen parliamentary oversight in Malaysia. It recommends establishing committees for each ministry to increase scrutiny, adopting practices from the UK like committees that review bills clause-by-clause. It also suggests giving committees more power to call experts and evidence. For question time, it proposes increasing transparency by broadcasting sessions live and setting criteria for question placement. Time for debate should also be increased to allow proper scrutiny of bills and policies.

1. As for the Select Committee, reform can be made through the consideration of the
establishment of additional parliamentary committees such as one parliamentary
committee for each Ministry to specifically check on it. In United Kingdom, they had
establish a Standing Committee where a permanent committee appointed to deal with a
specified subject and check upon Bill clause by clause. The Committees should be allowed to
have the power to call for experts, papers or documentary evidence in order to supplement
their scrutiny process. Also, if a Bill is dealing with a highly specialised area, then it is
recommended that the members of those particular Committees must be fully mindful of
that specialised area. Besides that, we should reduce member of ruling party in the select
committee to balance up and neutralized the scrutiny process. There also should be a
punishment implemented to enable them to enforce their wishes. For example, violations of
their suggestions or refusal to abide by their orders or refusal to co-operate with them in
their investigations are treated as contempt of Parliament. To ensure close scrutiny,
important Bills should be committed to Special or Select Committees of the Houses as is the
practice in the UK. A search on parliamentary records indicates that so far only five
legislative proposals were committed to Special or Select Committees. These were: Minor
Offences (Amendment) Bill 1960, Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) Bill 1966, Courts
of Judicature (Amendment) Bill 1968, Law Reform (Marriage & Divorce) Bill 1973 and the
Dangerous Drugs (Special Preventive Measures) Bill 1984.
As for Question Time, the increase on the investigatory powers of Parliament is very
vital. For example, there should be a clear line drawn up regarding as to what information’s
are considered detrimental to the security of the state/federation. This would enable
Parliament to have access to information which currently is denied based on notions such as
national security. Also, ministers should not be allowed to invoke collective responsibility in
trying to run away from being accountable and responsible to Parliament via individual
responsibility. To maximise the impact of question time, there should be live coverage of it
in the media as so the public may have knowledge on what is happening. Some clear-cut
criteria ought to be established for the placement of parliamentary questions on the daily
agenda. Greater openness and transparency in this area will allay the suspicion that
embarrassing questions are “killed” by placing them at the bottom of the list. There should
be a special 30 minute time slot once a week for the PM to answer questions. More time
probably should be given to Parliament in order to enable Parliament perform a better job
of scrutinising legislative and executive policies of the Government in power. In other
words, there is a good case for lengthening question time from the present one hour per
NelfiAmieraMizan
Multimedia University

2. parliamentary day to one-and-a-half or two hours a day. This is because the number of MPs
has increased since Merdeka; governmental powers have expanded and public expenditure
has soared.
As for debate, MPs must be supplied with draft copies of Bills at least two weeks
before the beginning of each session. The practice of putting Bills till they are laid before the
Dewan Rakyat prevents MPs from studying the Bills in depth and seeking expert outside
assistance. Parliamentary time set aside for debate should be reasonable in the sense that it
would allow for proper and in depth scrutiny of government’s legislative and executive
policies. Members of Parliament should be educated about the importance of a debate as a
tool to ensure accountability of the government in power to Parliament. White Papers on
proposed legislation should be made available to the public. This would enable members of
the public to air out their views before such legislation is debated in Parliament.
NelfiAmieraMizan
Multimedia University