KUCHING: The Constitution (Amendment) Bill 2019 which failed on Tuesday to get a two-thirds majority support from among the 222 members of parliament was made in a hurry, said Tourism, Arts, Culture, Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
“That was partly why it was defeated,” he told reporters yesterday at Baitulmakmur Building.
Of the 222 MPs, 138 voted in favour, 59 declined to vote while the rest abstained.
Abdul Karim also questioned the sincerity of those who made the proposed amendment.
“When the Federal Constitution is to be amended, it is a huge matter. In the United States over a period of hundreds of years, their constitution was amended only a few times, whereas ours has been amended hundreds of times in 55 years,” he said.
He pointed out that sometimes the amendments to our constitution were made without consultation with experts and wise people.
“If we look back at this matter, it was never referred to Sabah and Sarawak and yet in the constitution, Sabah and Sarawak are important entities that form Malaysia. Therefore, any amendment related to the rights of Sabah and Sarawak has to been referred to the relevant parties or entities,” he said.
He argued that this matter is the same if we want to reduce the power of the King.
“In this case we need to refer the matter to the Conference of Rulers otherwise the law cannot be made,” he said.
“It is the same with tourism which was never brought up when we signed the Malaysia Agreement. No one knew about tourism at that time and no one was concerned about the environment.”
He recalled that at the time the agreement was about to be signed the words “environment” and “tourism” had not acquired the meaning they have today.
He asked where in the Federal Constitution do the issues in the amendment bill fall. Are they located in the Federal List of the State’s List or Concurrent List?
“Lawmakers and constitutional experts should call it a ‘rescheduling list’ because it will be the main issue.
“Tourism was not discussed, but the federal government seemed to be hiding the matter from us,” he said.
He did not blame the parliamentarians for not being able to properly debate and discuss the issues as he himself did not know that the debate on Tuesday was on amending the amendment of 1976.
“I do not blame them because not all of them are experts in the constitutional field,” he said.
To him sincerity is important when enacting a law, and yet the tabling of the proposed amendment was hastily done.
“Why not wait for a few weeks to distribute the bill? Why must it be rushed to the last minute? It was irregular so that many ministers were noisy when it was tabled,” he said.
Looking at history, he said it began with the 1976 amendment to the Constitution that turned Sabah and Sarawak into two of the states of Malaysia.
“Of course, Sabah and Sarawak don’t like it as they, and Malaya — not the states in Malaya — were the signatories of the Malaysia Agreement 1963.
“Why should they be relegated to the level of the Malayan states? That is why they applied for the first amendment to be prepared before we proceed with subsequent amendments,” he said.
He further believed that several amendments have to be made as several rights of Sabah and Sarawak have been eroded over the past 55 years.
