I hope to highlight several issues which the veteran MP from Gua Musang Tengku Razaleigh on Monday said has caused a “historic juncture” as Malaysia’s economic and political situations are in a “gridlock” and teetering on crisis.
Firstly, the police arrest of two MPs, the DAP MP for Rasah Teo Kok Seong on Saturday and the PKR MP for Lembah Pantai Nurul Izzah Anwar on Monday, and their overnight remand at the Jinjang Police Station, and in the case of Kok Seong, the police sought another four-day remand but the magistrate only allowed remand for another day.
The police knew well beforehand that Kok Seong and Nurul would be reporting at the Dang Wangi Police station but on the day in question, the police did absolutely nothing to record their statements after their formal arrest, in order to justify an overnight remand for both at the Jinjang Police Station.
This is not police efficiency and professionalism at their best, but police pettiness and vindictiveness at their worst.
Nobody blames the police personnel at Wang Dangi for such petty and vindictive abuse of police powers, showing utter contempt and disrespect not only to Kok Siong and Nurul but also the institution of Parliament!
Nobody believes that the ordinary police rank and file are capable of such pettiness and vindictiveness against MPs. I do not believe that senior police officers would want to exhibit such police pettiness and vindictiveness which do not reflect well on police efficiency and professionalism – and such police abuses of power and contempt for MPs, particularly from Pakatan Rakyat, can only come from the command of one person, the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar.
Khalid had been abusing his powers and the high office of IGP carrying out a misguided war on Pakatan Rakyat leaders and NGO activists, who are patriots exercising their democratic rights to make Malaysia a better society, when he should be declaring war on Islamic State, which is using Malaysia as a centre to lure impressionable recruits to its terroristic cause of inhumanity marked by beheadings, public stonings and mass massacres.
But the police arrest of Nurul for what she spoke in Parliament during the debate on the Royal Address on 10th March on behalf of her father, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Parliamentary Opposition Leader and MP for Permatang Pauh, is doubly reprehensible.
Is the IGP so ignorant that he does not know that MPs enjoy parliamentary immunity for what they say in Parliament, except for the four entrenched “sensitive” which cannot be questioned as a result of the Constitution Amendments in 1971 as they constituted offences of sedition, namely the provisions on sovereignty of Malay rulers, citizenship, Article 152 on the National Language and the position of the languages of other communities and Article 153 on the special position of the Malays and natives of Sabah and Sarawak and the legitimate interests of other communities?
Is the IGP ignorant that Nurul’s speech did not touch on any one of these four entrenched subjects, and that questioning the Federal Court’s decision in the Anwar Ibrahim Sodomy II case is not sedition at all?
In arresting Nurul on the ground of sedition for what she said about the Federal Court decision in the Anwar Ibrahim Sodomy II case, the Police had itself broken the law – Section 7 of the Houses of Parliament (Privileges and Powers) Act 1952, which reads: “Immunity of Members from civil and or criminal proceedings for any thing done or said before the House. 7. No member shall be liable to any civil or criminal proceedings, arrest, imprisonment or damages by reason of any matter or thing which he may haved brought by petition, bill, resolution, motion or otherwise, or have said before the House or any committee.”
The Police is to uphold the law, but here the Police is breaking the law – Section 7 of the Houses of Parliament (Privileges and Powers) Act 1952.
The House set up the Committee of Privileges under Standing Order 80 to protect the “powers and privileges” of the House, and here we have a blatant case of breach of privileges of MPs as set out in Section 7 of the Houses of Parliament (Privileges and Powers) Act 1952.
I want to ask the Speaker, who is the Chairman of the Committee of Privileges, and the six members, what it proposes to do with such a blatant attack on the privileges of MPs; and I want to ask the Prime Minister who is the Leader of the House whether he proposes to move a motion to refer the Inspector-General of Police to the Committee of Privileges for the breach of parliamentary privilege in the case of the police arrest of Nurul Izzah, so that the Committee of Privileges can summon the IGP to account for the police breach of parliamentary privilege.
I still remember sometime in the eighties or nineties, the police wanted to investigate me for what I said in Parliament, and I told them that they were breaking the law, the Houses of Parliament (Privileges and Powers) Act 1952, and that they should go back and obtain advice from the Attorney-General. The Police officers went back and never came back.
In this case, the Committee of Privileges should haul up Khalid to ask the IGP to explain why the Police have committed a grave breach of parliamentary privilege in the case of the false arrest of Nurul Izzah for her speech in Parliament, which had not touched on any one of the four entrenched issues, and to decide how the IGP could purge the police contempt of Parliament.
(Part I of Speech on the motion of thanks for Royal Address in Parliament on Thursday, 19th March 2015)