(MalaysianInsider) KUALA LUMPUR, MAY 27 — DAP’s Lim Kit Siang could face action including being suspended from Parliament if he uses his blog to question decisions made by the Speaker and his deputy.
This possibility was alluded to by Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia yesterday when he ticked off the MP for Ipoh Timur for a posting in his blog concerning a rejection by the deputy speaker of an amendment to a motion of thanks for the Yang di-Pertuan Agong's address.
On Thursday, Lim’s motion sought to debate the setting up of a Royal Commission Inquiry to resolve the illegal immigrant problem in Sabah. Datuk Ronald Kiandee disallowed the motion on the grounds that the motion was not related to the Royal address. He advised Lim to table it as a single motion.
Lim criticised the ruling by Kiandee in his blog and asked the deputy speaker to "cite another Commonwealth Parliament which disallows amendments to the equivalent of Motion of Thanks for the Royal Address on the ground that it is 'irrelevant'."
Pandikar said he was disappointed that the matter was being published in the blog and certain newspapers. This gave the impression as if Lim could not accept the decision made by the deputy speaker. He then proceeded to read from portions of Parliament’s Standing Orders and rules from the House of Commons and Singapore’s Parliament to show that Kiandee’s decision was sound and based on the rules of the House.
"When it was taken out from the Dewan (Rakyat), it was like ignoring the Dewan's decision," he said before the debate on the Supplementary Supply Bill (2007) started at the Dewan Rakyat sitting yesterday.
He noted that in 2001, DAP’s MP for Batu Gajah Fong Po Kuan was suspended for six months from attending the Dewan Rakyat session for producing pamphlets outside the Parliamant accusing the Speaker, the late Tun Zahir Ismail, of not being fair to her.
"I cannot create a blog to give my answer. So when our decisions were being questioned every time we make one, then it means that the Parliament's decision was not respected. What was published in the blog can be seen as the same as what was published by Batu Gajah MP back then," he said.
Bernama reported Lim as saying that he would conduct a study on similar motions tabled by him in 1982 and 1996, and make the necessary changes in his blog, as advised by Pandikar.
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