MP SPEAKS | In Parliament last year, Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun proposed the setting up of nine select committees, namely those on liberty and constitutional rights; finance and economy; security; agencies under the Prime Minister’s Department; agriculture and domestic trade; infrastructure development; education; women and children’s affairs and social development; and health, science and innovation.

There is now to be an additional select committee on international affairs.

But none of these has been able to function effectively – not only because of the eight-month unconstitutional suspension of Parliament but because of outmoded, obsolete and antiquarian Dewan Rakyat Standing Orders – which do not allow the parliamentary select committees to play a more meaningful and significant role to keep the government in check.

The Australian Parliament had a Parliamentary Select Committee on the Covid-19 pandemic since April 2020, and it has held more than 50 public hearings in the last 18 months on the Australian government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a parliamentary best practice that should be adopted by the Malaysian Parliament...