razaleigh.com
the rule of law
A shameful scene is unfolding in Perak.

Let me follow up on what I said earlier about the status of the Chief Minister.

The Constitution is the highest law of the land. It is the foundation and source of legal authority, and the Rulers are sworn to protect and uphold it.

According to the Constitution, Dato’ Seri Nizar Jamaluddin is Menteri Besar until he resigns of his own accord, or is removed by a vote of no-confidence in a formal sitting of the assembly. The Constitution makes no provision for his removal by any other means, including by petitions or instructions from any other authority.

Two principles need clarifying in the light of today’s events:

First, the government of the day is established according to rules and principles codified in the Constitution. This is the difference between legitimately formed government and tyranny, which is rule by the law of the jungle.

Second, legitimate constitutional government draws all its authority from the consent of the people and only from that consent. The people consent because it is their government formed according to their constitution, whose leaders they have chosen through free and fair elections.

We need to test that consent periodically. At key points such as when governments are to be formed or to be dissolved, the Constitution provides for formal, definitive tests to find out how much of the people’s ‘consent’, or support, a government really has.

So we conduct elections to test how much support a candidate for leadership has among the people. The question is posed in elections governed by rules and oversight agreed ahead of time. If those elections are not held, or if there is some doubt that they are free and fair, then the question of legitimate leadership is not determined. It doesn’t matter how many men with flaming torches march chanting your name in the middle of the night. You need to prove you have the support of voters in a free and fair election.

Similarly, the Constitution provides for a definitive way to test if the Chief Minister or the Prime Minister commands a majority in the dewan or in Parliament, as the case may be. We put the question to a vote of confidence on the floor of the Dewan. Only the answer of the assembly counts. It doesn’t matter how many sworn statements, defections, press conferences, and declarations you have, nor what forms of advertisement, display, inducement or force you bring to bear on the question.

To formally test the mandate of the current government, whether in Perak, Sabah or the Federal government, the question must either be put to the people through state elections, or to the assemblymen through a formal vote in the dewan. These are the only tests that count in our constitutional democracy.

This is what it means to be a parliamentary democracy. To remove and install governments in any other way is to violate the Constitution, erode the rule of law, and to run the risk of forming an illegal government.

Legitimate authority can only be established through the democratic means spelled out in our constitution. Rightful authority is an entirely different thing from the brute power that can be bought, sold or seized by force.

The invisible laws make our government, nation and society possible. I won’t begin to describe the harm we would do these things if we began to ratify power achieved without regard for the rule of law.

I would like to say thank you to the many people who have commented on these pages and on other sites in which my recent postings have been reported. Others have written to me directly. I am touched by your support and friendship.

Each medium of communication comes with its own style of communication and makes people relate to each other in different ways. Old-fashioned writing tends to be more formal and distant, with responses spaced out over days or weeks. Conversation puts people in the same moment. Blogs, I have found ask for immediate, informal and more personal communication with … the world. For someone bred and educated in my time and circumstances, it does take some getting used to. So I beg your indulgence meanwhile.

Please also excuse me for not being able to answer your comments individually. I assure you, however, that I read them all and hear and think about what you are saying.

Today let me respond to just one of the comments:

Reader humbleself writes:

Everyone should ponder why is there such a hurry to form a new state government when there is so much controversy constitutionally before hand.

I wonder why too. I wish our leaders were in as great a hurry to prepare our people for the direst economic crisis the world has faced since the Great Depression.

Even those countries which have put their best brains to work on the problem, given it the highest priority and set aside tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus spending now find that they have grossly under-estimated its scale, depth and complexity.

In the US yesterday, President Barack Obama chided Congress for its slowness in passing a stimulus bill.

These numbers demand action. The situation could not be more serious. It is inexcusable and irresponsible for any of us to get bogged down in distraction, delay, or politics as usual..

Now is the time … to act. To pass an economic recovery and investment plan . This is not some abstract debate. It is an urgent and growing crisis.

China has responded forcefully and cohesively with it’s own “New Deal”, Australia is already delivering a second stimulus package after a successful first round. Singapore has acted decisively with a S20.5Bn “Resilience Package” designed to cushion a recession it cannot avoid.

Meanwhile we aren’t even at the alert level that the rest of the world was at last year. One of the world’s top twenty trading nations officially thinks it merely faces a routine slowdown in the midst of a collapse in world trade.

I have been calling on our leadership to sit up and take note of the historic dimensions of this crisis since October last year. I reiterated this call in a speech last month. In the short time since, Malaysian industry leaders and economics bloggers have also been calling on the government to come out of their official denial that anything serious is going to happen to our economy. Ratings agencies, brokerage houses, banks and researchers have all come out with growth estimates drastically lower than the government’s projected rate of 3.5% growth. The government should come clean on the recession we are entering, and on how we will face it with our already ballooning budget-deficit.

Economic numbers translate into jobs, livelihoods, opportunities, food on the table. Poor economic management has very real consequences in the lives of our citizens.

The public and the business and investment community must surely get a feeling of unreality around this administration.

It’s as if the fire alarm has been ringing, the neighbourhood, in fact the whole town, is on fire and the firemen are holed up playing games with each other. Or starting other fires.