Sivarasa Rasiah, Vice President of Parti Keadilan Rakyat has responded to Deborah Loh’s New Straits Times article that Parti Keadilan Rakyat is “misrepresenting” by wanting to restore the Agung right.
Sivarasa Rasiah
“I refer to the article written by Deborah Loh alleging that Parti Keadilan Rakyat is ‘misrepresenting’ the Federal Constitution in calling for a restoration of the right of the Agung to send proposed legislation back to Parliament.
Deborah’s piece appears to be based on that written by Elisabeth Looi quoting Datuk Seri Wan Azizah at the recent PKR Congress in Shah Alam over the weekend.
Datuk Seri Wan Azizah did NOT at any time say that PKR wanted an absolute veto power for the Agung i.e a position where the Agung could irrevocably reject any proposed legislation. When she said that PKR wanted to restore the Constitution to its pre-amendment position, it was clear that this was a return to the original position where the Agung could reject and send legislation back to Parliament once. This was the ‘veto’ she spoke of.
If Parliament then decided to send it back to the Agung, either in its original form or amended, this was final and the Agung would have to assent to it. This was necessary to maintain the principle of the supremacy of Parliament.
Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim repeated this position in his press conference in Parliament on Tuesday afternoon.
The allegation of PKR ‘misrepresenting’ the Federal Constitution cannot therefore arise. It is unfortunate that such a conclusion may have been drawn because of your writers not being fully aware of what was the original position in the Constitution before the 1993 amendments took place.
It would appear from Deborah’s article that the views of Prof Shad Faruqi are a response to an erroneous representation made to him that PKR was suggesting giving the Agong a power of absolute veto over legislation.
We hope that this clarification will set matters straight and further misrepresentation avoided.”
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