Is Nazri openly challenging the Monarchy?

Nazri: King must act on PM's advice

The Yang di-Pertuan Agong has to act on the advice of the prime minister on extending the tenure of the chief justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, who is due to retire at the end of the month, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said.

The minister in the Prime Minister's Department said the king, as a constitutional monarch, was bound by the prime minister's advice in the appointment and promotion of judicial officers.

"This includes whether to extend by six months the tenure of the chief justice after he attains the compulsory retirement age of 66," he said

"Only the prime minister is in the capacity to know about it because he does not delegate the matter to me," Nazri moaned.

Ahmad Fairuz has applied to the king in July for a six-month extension but with two more weeks to go before his retirement, Ahmad Fairuz has not received an official letter to allow him to remain in office.

Meanwhile, the Conference of Rulers, which endorses the appointments and promotions of judges, will meet for two days from Oct 31.

Malaysia is a federal constitutional elective monarchy. The Yang Di Pertuan Agong is the King of Malaysia. The King is an absolute monarch; he is the sole fount of honor, the sole source of justice and the sole repository of the executive and the legislative power.

The King is traditionally the pinnacle of a hierarchy and the sole source of judicial, executive and legislative power. His power is maintained and enhanced through the development of an unquestioning loyalty that has imbued Malaysians with a strong sense of reverence for and fear of the rulers.

The 1957 Constitution provided for the position of the Yang Di Pertuan Agong. The King is chosen by the Conference of Rulers from among the Sultans of the States and serves in office for a period of 5 years. The King is accorded the power of assent to legislation and appointments of senior judges. The King’s assent to legislation is left entirely to his discretion. The King is also given power to act in his discretion to appoint the Prime Minister and to withhold consent to any request for the dissolution of Parliament.

In other matters where powers are granted to the King he must act on the advice of the cabinet or of a minister of cabinet with the general authority of the cabinet. For example, the King appoints the Chief Justice and judges of the Federal and High Courts on the advice of the prime Minister.

However, the Constitution provided for the Rulers’ sovereignty, prerogatives, powers and jurisdiction of the Rulers as hitherto had and enjoyed shall remained unaffected (Article 181(1)).

Article 38(4) in the Federal Constitution provided that: “No law directly affecting the privileges, position, honours or dignity of the Rulers shall be passed without the consent of the Conference of Rulers.

In 1983 the government proposed to amend the Constitution which for the first time brought the Rulers openly into conflict with the government and with UMNO. The amendment altered the provisions with respect to the King’s assent to bills. The proposed amendments also provided for a change in the power to declare an emergency. The amendment gave the PM the power to instruct the King to declare an emergency.

The King and the Rulers refused to give assent to the amendment bill. This was followed by political rallies by the PM and UMNO members who seeks the abolition of the monarchy. Eventually a compromise solution was accepted and the constitution was amended in 1993.

The events of 1993 appear to have irrevocably reduced the significance of the Malay Rulers in our society and in the politics of Malaysia.

In 1988 when the future of UMNO was about to be decided in the Supreme Court (it had just been de-registered as an illegal society in the High Court), Mahathir was believed to have engineered the dismissal of the Lord President of the Supreme Court, Salleh Abas, and three other supreme court justices who tried to block the misconduct hearings. The series of incidents in 1988 has been widely viewed as the end of the Malaysian judiciary's independence from the executive.

Although the Federal Constitution leave the Rulers as mere constitutional monarchs they wielded considerable influence due largely to the traditional reverence of the Malaysians for their Rulers.

It is observed that Nazri is testing the water, to see whether there is impotency that had existed.

We Malaysians strongly believed that the monarchy will show us the way to cure the dysfunctional system and clean up the worms.