(Petaling Jaya, Saturday): The Parliament lobby was packed with People’s Progressive Party (PPP) supporters on Wednesday when PPP President Datuk M. Kayveas was sworn in as a Senator.
The Senate appointment for Kayveas is a victory for PPP which had been absent from Parliament for 25 years but a blow to constitutional integrity and propriety. The same argument applies in the case of the Senate appointment for the MIC Wilayah Persekutuan state secretary, M. Saravanan on the same day.
Article 46 of the Malaysian Constitution makes it very clear that Senators to be appointed by the Yang di Pertuan Agong "shall be persons who in his opinion have rendered distinguished public service or have achieved distinction in the professions, commerce, industry, agriculture, cultural activities or social services or are representatives of racial minorities or are capable of representing the interests of aborigines."
The appointments of Kayveas and Saravanan as Senators by the Yang di Pertuan Agong do not fit any of these constitutional stipulations and qualifications - and it is most unconstitutional to abuse Article 46 to appoint party hacks from the various Barisan Nasional component parties as Senators as distribution of "spoils of office".
If Kayveas and Saravanan’s appointments are to be regularised, then Article 46 of the Constitution has to be amended to include another class of persons deserving to be appointed as Senators - namely "persons who have rendered distinguished service to the ruling parties"!
The time has come for an end to the cynical abuse of senatorial appointments
in making the most unworthy and improper appointments under Article 46
so as to restore the integrity and dignity of the Senate, and one way to
do this is for a transparent selection process to be instituted where every
appointment of a Senator must be justified as to how he or she fulfils
the stipulations and criteria set out in the constitution for Senate appointment
and for such appointments to be withdrawn where these constitutional
qualifications have not been observed.
(9/12/2000)