Whether RUU355 Hudud Bill will be tabled in Parliament, it is the BN Ministers who call the shot, not up to the Speaker of the House to determine.
Though the Speaker is the person who chair the Parliamentary meeting, but the agenda for the meeting is determined by the BN Minister. Therefore, whether the RUU355 will be tabled in the current parliamentary sitting, it is solely up to the BN Minister.
Everyday, before the Parliament meeting starts, the agenda of the meeting (Order Paper) will be laid on the table of all the Members of Parliament. The Order Paper will set down the number of Government Bills to be debated in the Parliament, to be followed by the other motions or bills submitted by the ordinary Members of Parliament.
The agenda in the Order Paper is determined by the BN Ministers, not the Speaker who is only there to follow the instruction of the BN Ministers.
For example, in today’s Order Paper, there are 12 Government Bills to be debated before Hadi’s RUU355 Bill which is listed as 13th in the Order Paper.
By the norms of our Parliament sittings which will end at 5:30 p.m. everyday, and the usual debates on every Bill, it is impossible that in the next two days of sitting (last days of sittings in this session), it will reach Hadi’s RUU355. Once the session of sittings end, all undebated bills will remain undebated.
However, there are 2 ways by which Hadi’s Bill can be debated despite the fact that it is listed number 13th. The two ways are:
- A minister moves a motion to extend the time of the meeting to beyond 5:30 p.m. for the day, so that there will be more time to debate and pass the Government Bills and Hadi’s Hudud bill.
- A minister moves a motion to withdraw some of the undebated Government Bills so that RUU355 can be tabled and read out in Parliament before the meeting ends for the day.
In either way, it is a minister who moves the motion and the Speaker has no power to reject the motion.
As for today’s meeting, a minister has moved that it will only end at 11:30 pm. Yesterday’s meeting, upon motion by a Minister, went all the way up to 12:30 midnight. Probably, all these arrangement were done to pave the way for Hadi’s Bill to be tabled in Parliament on Thursday.
Since 2004 when I was first elected as a Member of Parliament till this day, I have never seen any Bill submitted by an ordinary Member of Parliament been tabled and read out in Parliament. This is because there are always so many Government’s Bills to be debated till the end of the every session of meetings. At the end of every session of meetings, those undebated Government Bills will remain undebated and will be re-tabled in the next session of meetings.
The only exception to this norms is Hadi’s RUU355 Hudud Bill which was given priority and precedence over the Government Bill. It happened last year and it is likely to happen again tomorrow.
It is thus obvious that there is a conspiracy or understanding between UMNO and PAS so that the Government Bills will either be rushed through or withdrawn to allow Hadi to formally table and read out his RUU355 Hudud Bill in Parliament.
The fact that Hadi was able to table and read out his RUU355 Hudud Bill in Parliament means that he has already obtained the consent to do so from Najib and his cabinet.
Therefore, all the talk by Najib that the Government will not adopt Hadi’s RUU355 Hudud Bill and that it is up to the Speaker to determine whether the RUU355 Hudud Bill will be tabled and read out in Parliament are just a play-acting choreographed by UMNO and PAS and a blatant lie by Najib.
Ask any MPs or ex-MPS, or those who know the workings of Parliament, and they will tell you that the Agenda for the meeting (Order Paper) is determined by the BN Ministers not the Speaker and that what Najib said is a blatant lie.