There are three main parliamentary procedures for Members of Parliament to scrutinize the government: select committees, question time, and debate sessions. Select committees review bills in detail but have limitations like similar membership to the Dewan Rakyat. Question time allows questioning of ministers but the ruling party controls proceedings. Debate sessions provide a platform for different views but the government often passes bills quickly using techniques to limit debate. Overall, while these procedures allow for scrutiny, the ruling party controls parliament and limits effective oversight of the executive.

1. There are several parliamentary procedures that enable Members of
Parliament to scrutinise the government administrator.
Firstly is through the process of Select Committee which occur at the
Committee Stage during the legislative process. In Malaysia, only Bills that required
detailed scrutinise will be send to the Select Committee. By this process the defect in
a Bill may be eliminated before it becomes an Act. The committee is allocated
specifically to check on the bill thus preventing the Executive from passing any Bills
as they please. Through this also, it will ensure accountability of Minister to the
Parliament regarding the policies, actions and decisions that they implement. As the
checker of Executive, Select Committee may influence ministerial decision to behave
well and to make a better decision.
However, there are some drawbacks of this process. The membership of
Select Committee is the same as in the Dewan Rakyat thus having no neutral in the
method of scrutiny as it is just a mini Dewan Rakyat. When it comes to a Bill of a
very technical and specialised area, members of Select Committee might have no
knowledge on it. To make it worst, members of Select Committee have limited
powers to hire experts and called for evidence to supplement their scrutiny
process.Besides that, inconsistency of information may occur between the
backbenchers, who gain information from the ruling party and opposition party. As
the committee cannot compel the government to allow them to interview the
subjected Ministers, the Ministers are not required to appear as witnesses and if they
attend or allow the interview, they may rely on collective responsibility. Due to
shortage of time in Select Committee and to make time for debate session,
Parliament will implement a motion to cut short the consideration of the Bill through
Guillotine Motion and Kangaroo Motion.
Secondly is through the question time that take place during the Second
Reading and Committee Stage. Question Time allows the Parliament to check on the
activities of the Executive. During this process, Members of Parliament are strictly
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2. only to asked question and must not make any statement. Alternatively, the Minister
will explain the merits and principle of the Bill. At this process the government is
formally accountable to the Parliament for its management of notion’s affairs. The
opposition Members of Parliament play an important role here to check on the
government. They may question to obtain immediate action on issues where the
governmentfail to know. Besides, they also may leaks government deceit and
publicise it to the public. This may trigger the government thus making them to
functions properly.
However, some defects occur through this process. Foremost, the Dewan
will be controlled by a Speaker who holds final authority on the admissibility of
question and he might not be neutral. Moreover, due to 2 party systems practised in
Malaysia, the composition in Parliament is more towards the ruling government.
Thus, during this session, the backbenches will ask question that supports their
Minister rather than a killer question.When a question being asked, the Minister may
in some ways avoid it through stone walling-delaying tactics, party jibbing and
evasion by injecting unnecessary elements to the question. Some also may simply
classify the question on ground of public policy or national security. They even find
refuge in the convention of collective responsibility where they combine as a
unanimous voice. A parliamentary question must be submitted in advance before the
Parliaments sits, thus the question will be passed directly to the relevant
governmental department and answers will be prepared by the civil servants both for
main and anticipated supplementary question. This method will keep the Minister
unaware of the fundamental problem as he is not directly involved. During this
session also, Parliament applies the rota system where it goes through rotation and
limits opportunity to question senior Ministers. There are 2 ways for the Minister to
answer question either orally or written form. When Ministers are submitted with a
killer question, they will place the question at the bottom during question time and
after the parliament adjourns, they have to answer the question by written form.
Thirdly is through the debate session that usually occurs at Second
Reading and Committee Stage. At this process the Minister who in charge of the
Billis to explain, defend and justifies its policy on what it is doing and why. It also
allocated a platform for any parties to express their views on the matter to be
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3. discussed and scrutinise. The opposition then have the opportunity to point out the
weaknesses and propose for an alternative. Thus, through debate it allows the
House to have a second look at the provision of the Bill and reconsider on whether to
continue its implementation. By debate session also allows important matter to be
discussed by the House through ‘Adjournment of Debates’ which allows the Member
of Parliament to apply to the speakers to raise an urgent matter to be debated.
Besides, debates also help to educate public opinion by presenting a variety of
opinions and remedies for dealing with national concerns.
However, government Bills are generally passed without much difficulty.
Even constitutional amendments are enacted quite easily. For example, the
landmark Constitution (Amendment) Bill 1993 to remove the immunity of the Malay
Rulers was introduced in the Dewan Rakyat on Jan 18, 1993, and passed the next
day. Dewan Negara endorsed the Bill on Jan 20. Besides, the government uses
parliamentary techniques to cut short debating time for instance the closure of
motions- the Bill be read for a second time, guillotine-it means that the time taken for
debate is effectively ‘guillotine’ and kangaroo - which means hopping from one
clause of a Bill to another. There is also parliamentary time set aside for debating
and this is actually done by the government in power in order to make sure that
debates are not used as tools or mechanisms to interfere with the smooth running of
the House. Emergency debates are viewed as disrupting the parliamentary
timetable, hence they are confined only to matters deemed to be of urgent national
importance, and applications are sparingly granted. Moreover, the ‘daily adjournment
debates’ might be misused by the opposition or the backbenchers. Instead of coming
up with a constructive criticism, the opposition or backbenchers may use the
occasion for their own selfish political motive.
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