Following the Federal Court decision yesterday that the Perak State Assembly Speaker V. Sivakumar does not have the power to suspend the usurper Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Zambry Abdul Kadir and his six state executive council members from attending the assembly, Zambry is seeking to convene the Perak State Assembly on May 7.
However, the Federal Court decision yesterday is defective, null and void.
Firstly, it was not the Speaker who suspended Zambry and his six executive council members, but the Perak State Assembly Committee of Privileges on Feb. 18.
In striking out the purported suspension order of the Perak State Assembly Speaker, the Federal Court was striking out an order that does not exist – as the suspension order was that of the Committee of Privileges.
Zambry and his six exco members had sued the wrong party and as a result, has got a Federal Court order against the wrong party.
Secondly, the Federal Court decision is a serious violation of the doctrine of separation of powers among the three branches of state, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary, each recognizing and respecting the limits of its own powers not to trespass into the powers of the other branches.
Both the legislative and judicial branches of state have powers to punish contempt for disobedience to their decisions.
Is Malaysia to witness a situation where the legislature (whether Parliament or State Assembly) issues contempt orders against the Judiciary, while the Judiciary itself issues contempt orders against the Legislature, because of conflict of decisions over the same subject-matter – as happened in some other countries which do not understand or are not prepared to give scrupulous regard to the doctrine of separation of powers?
If this unfortunate scenario should take place, it will spawn a new crisis of confidence in the judiciary – which will be a great disservice to the cause of rebuilding national and international confidence in the competence, professionalism and integrity of national institutions particularly after the Malaysian judiciary has suffered two decades of “darkness” from which it has not fully recovered.
The undemocratic, unethical, illegal and unconstitutional power grab in Perak must be resolved in the shortest possible time, without dragging more and more institutions into the mud, so that Malaysians can unite as one to face the world’s worst global economic crisis in a century.
The fairest and most democratic solution to the Perak political and constitutional stalemate is to dissolve the Perak State Assembly to return the mandate to the Perakians to elect the State Government they want, instead of trying to legitimize the hijacking of the political rights of Perakians by various dubious means.
Instead of trying to convene a Perak State Assembly meeting on May 7 which will bring the Perak political and constitutional crisis to a new level of confrontation, Zambry should take full cognizance of the Barisan Nasional defeat in the Bukit Gantang by-election and agree to the immediate dissolution of Perak State Assembly for new state general election to be held.