Good for Pakatan to have committees to shadow cabinet
Well, Pakatan Rakyat had recently unveiled its members of parliament as committee members of various portfolios to shadow the Najib administration.
There are 25 ministries to shadow, and each cabinet portfolio committees are fairly represented by members of parliament from DAP, PKR and PAS respectively. According to PKR vice –president Azmin Ali those committees will have specialist in respective fields to assist the Pakatan MPs in discharging their duties.
This is a very good start for Pakatan to coordinate debates in the parliament and to closely monitor the performance of all ministries as well.
However, we would like to urge Pakatan in coming future to push hard for a law that will allow those shadow committees to be turned into parliamentary select committees in order to seek a more open and transparent democratic process in the parliament rather than the current strict and controlled question, answering process which are controlled by the Dewan Rakyat speaker.
The current procedures in our parliament debates still limits our MPs from speaking up freely and motions to be tabled. The current procedure also saw the speaker as being too powerful and has the right to reject motions which are deemed not favourable to the federal government.
We want a parliament which could provide full democratic forum for all our MPs and not the rubber-stamp system which is currently in place.
There are 25 ministries to shadow, and each cabinet portfolio committees are fairly represented by members of parliament from DAP, PKR and PAS respectively. According to PKR vice –president Azmin Ali those committees will have specialist in respective fields to assist the Pakatan MPs in discharging their duties.
This is a very good start for Pakatan to coordinate debates in the parliament and to closely monitor the performance of all ministries as well.
However, we would like to urge Pakatan in coming future to push hard for a law that will allow those shadow committees to be turned into parliamentary select committees in order to seek a more open and transparent democratic process in the parliament rather than the current strict and controlled question, answering process which are controlled by the Dewan Rakyat speaker.
The current procedures in our parliament debates still limits our MPs from speaking up freely and motions to be tabled. The current procedure also saw the speaker as being too powerful and has the right to reject motions which are deemed not favourable to the federal government.
We want a parliament which could provide full democratic forum for all our MPs and not the rubber-stamp system which is currently in place.
