Perak State Assembly Speaker still rules the House...

Who is in charge depends on where you are.

If we think about it, in the school, the Headmaster or Principal, rules. I wanted to use the word ‘is king’ but it might upset some sensitive people. Now I cannot even say that ‘Wong’ and ‘Ong’ means ‘king’ in Cantonese and Hokien respectively.

In the Court House, the Magistrate, the High Court Judge, Appellate Court Judge, or Federal Court Judge, rules, and even the Prime Minister of the day will have to bow to him, if he happened to be there as a witness to give evidence.

It therefore follows, that in a State Assembly, or the House of Parliament, the Speaker of the House, rules. As we have seen before, he can send someone off the premises, or even suspend the person for a certain period of time.

It is interesting to read the following article and I am going to the Perak State Assembly on Tuesday, March 3, to see how the event of the Emergency Meeting will turn out, or if it ever gets to be held. Quite honestly, surprises are common these days.

Malaysia-Today: - When Umno forgot to ‘kidnap’ the speaker
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What is interesting about this Perak fiasco is that despite the collapse of the PR government the office of Pakatan’s speaker remains intact. And the most fascinating fact is that even the Sultan has no power to remove the speaker.
By Mohamed Hanipa Maidin, The Malaysian Insider
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If Abdullah had taken pains to get proper legal advice, he surely would have known about the existence of the following laws dealing with the immunity of the speaker, namely the Legislative Assembly (Privileges) Enactment 1959 and Article 72 of the Federal Constitution respectively. These two laws protect the speaker from any civil suit and criminal prosecution whenever he discharges his official duty.

It is submitted that the issue whether the decision of the speaker was legally correct or not does not arise in this matter. The laws,enacted by the BN government, conferred him immunity. The speaker’s decision, unless set aside or quashed by a court of law, was legally valid and binding on Zambry and his six exco members. Non-compliance with the decision of the legitimate speaker is at Zambry’s own peril.
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What is interesting about this Perak fiasco is that despite the collapse of the PR government the office of Pakatan’s speaker remains intact. And the most fascinating fact is that even the Sultan has no power to remove the speaker. He was appointed by the state assembly, thus the removal must also come from the latter unless he resigns or no longer holds office as an assemblyman.

Since the speaker has not lost his office it follows that he still possesses very vast powers in so far as the business of state assembly is concerned. He has inter alia very wide powers to suspend any state assemblymen as he did to Zambry and the six BN exco members. As far as the “three stooges” (don’t tell me you don’t know who they are) are concerned they are no longer assemblymen. The speaker has already made a ruling that their resignations were valid and constitutional under Article 35 of Perak’s Constitution. Even if they consider themselves assemblymen they only represent the Elections Commission and not the rakyat of their respective constituency.