When the Speaker Has a Brother As AG and Perceived As Being in Conflict Left Parliament in Chaos!

When the Speaker Has a Brother As AG and Perceived As Being in Conflict Left Parliament in Chaos! It’s too late to save his credibility.

By Mihar Dias
(C) Copyright July 2022

It is difficult if not impossible to be impartial and fair when you are a Speaker of the House and your brother is the Attorney General of the country who is embroiled in a case involving a claim against the nation and there is a “perceived conflict” of interest amongst MPs about your role. When that happened the best option available for a Speaker, is to walk out of the assembly.

That is what happened on July 18, 2022, at the Dewan Rakyat on a day when an MP Isnaraissah Munirah (Warisan-Kota Belud) was ejected from the Dewan Rakyat and suspended after being involved in an argument with Speaker Azhar Harun resulting in the latter walking out of the hall.

It started when Isnaraissah questioned why her motion to debate the Sulu arbitration issue was rejected by the Speaker three times. She asked whether the Dewan Rakyat did not care about the matter since it only concerns Sabah.

She was interjected by Ramkarpal Singh, who complained that his emergency motion to discuss a similar matter was also rejected earlier.

He asked the Speaker whether the rejection of the motions had anything to do with Attorney-General Idrus Harun who is the Speaker’s brother.

He went on, “The critique is towards the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC), which is led by your brother,” Ramkarpal said.

“If you are afraid that your brother will be criticised, you are in a conflict of interest. There is a clear conflict of interest in your actions.”

Azhar explained that he had to reject the motions because they would be sub judice since there were ongoing proceedings involving the matter overseas.

He explained that the Sulu arbitration issue had been discussed in previous Dewan Rakyat meetings that took place last March.

He said he rejected the motions since he had received legal opinions that they were sub judice because there were ongoing proceedings overseas, and stressed that there was no conflict of interest in his actions.

“I have never spoken about work matters with him (Idrus). If there are any matters related to him, I will exempt myself,” he said.

R Sivarasa quickly responded saying that sub judice could not be used in this case as an excuse by Azhar to reject these motions because the court proceedings were not taking place in Malaysia but overseas.

“Your brother (Idrus) should explain (himself),” he said. (Reports from NST, FMT, TRP)

While it may take time for Idrus or Azhar to explain themselves if they cared to but from the circumstances surrounding the event it is very apparent that a conflict of interest does exist as perceived by many parties involved within and outside Parliament house.

A perceived conflict of interest does not have to be real because it simply means “a reasonable perception by an informed person that a conflict of interest situation exists or may exist”. (lawinsider.com)

Similarly, a perceived conflict of interest occurs “when an individual or institution may reasonably be understood as having two competing interests, one of which is likely to interfere or undermine a person’s or an institution’s ability to fulfil their responsibilities as an executive or an institution”.(https://www.ryerson.ca )

Within the framework of our Parliament, it is obvious that there is a conflict of interest as perceived by the MPs in the hall and the population at large.

For the first time in the history of the country, we have two individuals, one in the legislature as Speaker and the other in the judiciary as AG, linked by birth.

No matter how much you deny or ignore the issue the public may not want to dismiss this obvious perceived conflict of interest.

Ramkarpal is an “informed” person who clearly saw this perceived conflict of interest in Azhar.

So did Sivarasa and others in the hall who knew of the blood ties of the AG and the Speaker.

Azhar’s defensive explanation just made it worse. It became far worse when he became engaged in war of words between representatives in the hall and ruled against the MP from Sabah.

In hindsight, he should have handed over the reins to his deputy when the issue was first raised not when the Parliament was already in chaos.

If only he did that and not ruled against Isnaraissah Munirah his credibility would still be intact instead of leaving his reputation in tatters once Parliament was already in complete chaos before walking out of the august assembly.

Why didn’t Azhar see the perceived conflict of interest that others found so obvious?

Rumi’s lines in the Masnavi may serve as a reminder to us all, more so for the Speaker, when he penned “Don’t you know why we can’t perceive it here? Your mirror’s face is rusty – scrape it clear!”.

Mihar Dias is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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