This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on December 15, 2015.

GEORGE TOWN: DAP will support any attempt to enlarge the democratic space in Parliament, including the setting up of a second chamber to debate all emergency motions, said its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng.

“There have been no such reforms in Parliament for far too long. We support any move to increase the democratic space in the House, but we don’t want proposals that may limit or restrict freedom or the opportunity for MPs (members of parliaments) to speak,” Guan Eng said yesterday when responding to questions about Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia’s proposal.

It was reported on Sunday that Pandikar wanted the second chamber to deal with emergency motions, so that matters of urgent public importance would no longer be rejected.

He also reportedly said the second chamber would help tackle the perception that the speaker’s office is following orders of the executive.

The proposal is subject to Parliament’s approval.

Guan Eng, who is Penang chief minister and Bagan MP, said there should also be more question time in Parliament, like what the Penang legislative assembly had introduced.

In Penang, the first one and a half hours of the sitting every day are designated for question time. This reform was implemented for the first time in the recently concluded assembly last month.

On Pandikar’s remarks that some MPs in the House, including those in the opposition, were using unparliamentary language and not observing decorum, Guan Eng said such things happened in most parliaments.

“Look at the House of Commons [of the United Kingdom], but they still have question time.

“The substance must be there and form must be observed. It may be noisy but democracy is still there,” Guan Eng said.

Earlier this year, Pandikar retracted his resignation as speaker after Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak told him to give the government time to fulfil the reforms he wanted.

Earlier this month, DAP lawmakers Ng Wei Aik and Lim Lip Eng told Pandikar to gracefully quit his position for failing to introduce parliamentary reforms. — The Malaysian Insider