by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling, Jaya on Wednesday, March 3, 1993:
DAP MPs will vote in support of the 1993 Constitution Amendment Bill when it is returned to the Dewan Rakyat with the consent of the Conference of Rulers next week
DAP had made it clear in the special Dewan Rakyat meeting of January 18 and 19 that we support the principles and provisions of the 1993 Constitution Amendment Bill to remove the Rulers’ immunity to commit criminal and wrongdoings, but DAP MPs had to cast abstention vote because the Bill had not complied with a fundamental constitutional requirement in getting tile consent of the Conference of Rulers.
As the Constitution has made it very clear that the consent of the Conference of Rulers is necessary for the 1993 Constitution Amendment Bill to become valid law, DAP had suggested that the Government and the Rulers return to the discussion table to reach an accord on such a constitutional amendment on the removal of the Rulers’ immunity.
Another reason why the DAP MPs cast, the abstention vote on the 1993 Constitution Amendment Bill on January 19 is because we do not want to establish a precedent whereby other ‘entrenched clauses’ in the Constitution, like the constitutional guarantees for mother-¬tongue languages in Article 152 and citizenship rights under Part III, could also be undermined in the future.
Nobody is surprised that MCA and Gerakan Ministers and MPs have no choice but to blindly follow the dictates of UMNO and vote in support of the 1993 Constitution Amendment Bill, but they should have the decency and honesty to accept and appreciate the validity of the reasons which prompted DAP MPs to cast the abstention vote.
Instead, MCA and Gerakan Ministers tried to gain political mileage in a campaign to distort DAP’s stand by accusing the DAP of being a ‘royalist’ party in supporting the right of the Rulers to assault and kill people.
They also mocked at the DAP’s proposal that the Rulers and the Government return to the discussion table to reach an accord on the constitutional amendment bill.
This is why I had asked the MCA and Gerakan Ministers to declare whether they would dissociate with UMNO if the DAP proposal is acted upon, and the Government and the Rulers eventually return to the discussion table to reach an accord on the constitutional amendment bill.
In the event, the DAP proposal that the Government and the Rulers return to the discussion table to reach an accord on the constitutional amendment bill was acted upon. For this reason, DAP MPs will vote in support of the 1993 Constitution Amendment ill when it is returned to the Dewan Rakyat with the consent of the Conference of Rulers next week although there is ground to be critical of a few of the proposed amendments.
The Sultan of Kelantan has questioned the validity of the 161st Conference of Rulers and the Joint Statement made by the Rulers and the Government on February 11 on their accord on the constitution¬al amendment bill.
Unless the Sultan of Kelantan can get four other Rulers to agree with him in questioning the validity of the 161st Conference of Rulers and the Joint Statement of February 11, there is no basis to challenge the validity either of the special Parliamentary meeting in January, or next week’s Parliamentary meeting, or the 1993 Constitu¬tion Amendment Act after it had been passed by both Houses of Parlia¬ment next week.