Press Statement
17th June 2021

Takiyuddin Hassan Must Be Sacked For Not Respecting The Law And Open Disloyalty To The Royalty And Rakyat’s Wishes For Parliament To Be Convened “As Soon As Possible” As Decreed By The King And Rulers.

De facto Law Minister Takiyuddin Hassan must be sacked for not respecting the law and open disloyalty to the Royalty and rakyat’s wishes for Parliament to be convened “as soon as possible” as decreed by the King and State Rulers yesterday. Unless Takiyuddin makes a U-turn and demonstrate genuine contrition for this lapse, by his readiness to press the Prime Minister to comply with the Royal decree “as soon as possible”, the Prime Minister would be complicit in Takiyuddin’s blatant disobedience to the Federal Constitution and the will of the rakyat and Rulers.

What is so difficult to understand about the Royal decree that Parliament must convene as soon as possible? Takiyuddin’s reliance on Prime Minister Mahiaddin Md Yasin’s suggestion of Parliament convening by October or nearly 4 months later, obviously does not fulfil the meaning of “as soon as possible”. For Takiyuddin to attempt to spin the King’s decree of “as soon as possible”, as not specifying an exact date nor state which month when the House should be in session, is both irresponsible and dishonest.

Previously, Takiyuddin has shown his partisanship over professionalism by claiming that it is the Cabinet that will decide whether to advise the King whether to extend the Emergency, contrary to the Special Independent Committee on the Emergency 2021 set up under the Emergency Ordinances. Even the Prime Minister later corrected Takiyuddin that it is the Special Independent Committee on the Emergency 2021, and not the Cabinet, that will advise the King accordingly.

How many more mistakes must Malaysians suffer from a Law Minister who refuses to act in accordance with the law? Since the Rulers have also decreed that the Emergency Proclamation should not be extended after 1 August, Takiyuddin should act according to his powers as Law Minister to give effect to that decree. Instead, Takiyuddin performs amazing linguistic gymnastics to the detriment of the interests of the rakyat and jeopardising a whole-of society effort to win the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Mahiaddin’s National Recovery Plan (NRP), Parliament will reconvene during the third phase of Malaysia’s recovery from the current lockdown in October. This contradicts Mahiaddin’s three criteria in the NRP to move from one phase to another, namely the number of daily Covid-19 cases, nationwide ICU capacity and the number of people who have been vaccinated (with two doses).  

Based on these three criteria, Parliament can reopen immediately and need not wait till October. There are currently no new daily COVID-19 cases amongst MPs, not a single MP is receiving treatment under ICU and all MPs have been vaccinated. Using Mahiaddn’s three criteria in the NRP, there is no logical reason based on science and data to prevent Parliament from reconvening as soon as possible.

Lim Guan Eng
DAP Secretary-General