KUCHING: Padungan assemblyman Wong King Wei has labelled the Sarawak State Legislative Assembly (DUN) as less democratic and its current speaker, Datuk Amar Mohd Asfia Awang Nassar as the stumbling block to its reform.
Hence, Wong suggested that Asfia who has served as speaker for 19 years be removed from office in order to make the DUN Sarawak a more democratic institution.
Wong was speaking to reporters today after he attended a hearing before the Committee of Privileges of DUN Sarawak on the complaint of breach of parliamentary privileges.
He contended that the only way to remove Asfia from the speaker’s office would be to change the state government in the next state election.
If found guilty, Wong could be suspended from attending the assembly sitting for several months, which Wong said based on past cases, could be four to six months.
According to Wong, he was referred to the Committee of Privileges today following his speech at the DUN sitting last Nov 12 where he was accused of challenging the punctuality of the speaker in conducting the meetings.
He said in that portion of his speech, he commented that the speaker had not allowed for any motion from the Opposition members to be debated at the assembly sittings, while protecting the executives from answering questions on issues which the public wished to know.
He said there were seven members of the Committee of Privileges, but six turned up while Asfia was absent, hence the meeting today was chaired by the deputy chairman, who is also DUN Sarawak deputy speaker.
Wong said before the hearing started this morning, he had challenged the legality of the hearing on the basis of whether the chairman was allowed to be absent from the meeting.
He said his interpretation of Standing Order 73(6) was that at least four members including the chairman must be present to form the quorum.
Wong also challenged the role of the Committee of Privileges at the Nov 12 sitting as there was no substantive motion for debate, that he be referred to the committee, but it was straight after his speech that the speaker put to vote for him to be referred to the committee.
“For now, I will just wait for the committee’s recommendations to be forwarded to the DUN for a decision, and see how it goes,“ he said, adding that it was a sad thing to happen. — Bernama
