In a statement posted on his X account, PMX said his application to refer 8 legal questions to the Federal Court concerns the integrity of the Federal Constitution and the need to ensure that anyone holding high public office is protected from politically motivated litigation.
By way of overview, it can be said that the Prime Minister in Malaysia has enjoyed a tranquil history in terms of attacks on its behaviour.
Except for PM6 which resulted in him being removed through a democratically conducted general elections, there were no serious complaints against any of the other Prime Ministers that governed this country before.
Even the removal of PM6 was because his political coalition failed to get majority support from the Members of Parliament after the 14th GE and not through the legal process.
During the same period, there has been a greater number of complaints against lower level Members of Parliament and Ministers in the Cabinet than to the Prime Minister.
In fact, the lack or absence of any such legal travails against the Prime Minister raises the important questions whether the Prime Minister and its members in the Cabinet are sufficiently judged and whether the process by which complaints against them are investigated and determined is appropriate.
Already there is an increasingly growing sense amongst the ordinary rakyat that the Prime Minister should be held more accountable for his conduct as all his actions and conduct of his receive the full glare of publicity.
It should be said at the outset that any politically motivated litigation against the Prime Minister must be predicated against his conduct.
What is meant by ‘politically sensitive claims that could disrupt executive functions’ or ‘a suit against the Prime Minister is vexatious, reputationally malicious, or devoid of prima facie merit’?
Is there a unanimous consensus amongst all the lawmakers on the parameters of these 2 meanings and interpretations?
There appears to be no technical meaning for both to claim that a civil suit is disruptive and disrupt executive functions or a loss by the Prime Minister in the defence of the suit tantamount to a constructive removal of the Prime Minister through public trial.
Who decides whether the claims in the civil suit are politically sensitive or devoid of prima facie merit?
The Attorney General?
How does the AG establish and determined that the civil suit is flawed and the timing of when it is initiated is politically unfavourable and if allowed to proceed, could disrupt executive functions?
Is the AG going to establish a formal mechanism to review and determine that the civil suits initiated against the Prime Minister are vexatious and reputationally malicious?
If the civil suit impinged on acts that represented so serious a departure from standards of proper behaviour by a sitting Prime Minister that it has destroyed public confidence in his suitability to hold office, he should not be shielded by the Constitution.
The relevant question is akin to ‘a jury question’ in the sense that it is ultimately for the ordinary rakyat to determine and decides in the elections whether the issue that formed the basis in the civil suit that was initiated has been made out and that it warrants the Courts to assess and adjudge its seriousness and not behind the Constitution.
Thus, the concept is essentially of a political, and not of a constitutional, nature.
That is the price that the Prime Minister has to pay for holding a public office.
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