Parliamentary Roundtable on article 121 (1A)

I went to parliament yesterday to attend a parliamentary rountable on article 121 (1A). Let me give a brief description on the controversy arise from this article 121 (1A) which was ammended in 1988 suggested by Mahathir. It is a very simple ammendment which denies the civil court to override the syariah court decision. The main aim to ammend the article in 1988 according to Mahathir is to prevent thoes Muslim who failed in Syariah court to appeal in Civil court.

However, the late Moorthy(Everest Hero) case shows that this ammendment does not only affects muslim but also non-muslim. The civil court decided not to exercise its jurisdictionary based on article 121 (1A). Murti's wife was left with no remedy after failing in the syariah court. She is not a Muslim hence she could not appeal in a Syariah court. The ammendment in 1988 has far reaching implications and made a misperceptionl that syariah law is the ultimate law in this land.

Since I do not have any classes in the morning, I decided to go to the parliament. I phoned Mr. Lau Weng San and confirmed with him that I as an undergraduate could attend the parliamentary roundtable. Jia Hao went together with me. He even skip one tutorial class in the morning. We woke up late, around 9.30am. We are supposed to arrive there by 10.30am. Luckily there was not much car on the road and we managed to arrive there on time.

When we reach the guard house, there were 3 soldiers waiting for us. One of them is holding a gun(it looks like a machine gun) After we identify ourselves, they let us in. When I first stepped into the parliament, my first impression is it is really grand and classy. The papers always describe our parliament as a 5 star hotel. I would say it's like a 10 star hotel(if there is one!) It's hard to describe with my limited adjectives. These pictures will tell you a thousand words.




If I'm not mistaken the renovation took about 1.5 billion. does the money really worth it when parliamentary sittings are not always held throughout the year? Right now the dewan negara had adjourned and the next sitting will be in March. We managed to find our way into the conference room. All the panels are there. We get a sit somewhere around Teresa Kok(MP Seputeh) and Fong Kui Lun(MP Bukit Bintang)




After the roundtable ended, Jia Hao went up to Guan Eng and introduce himself. Guan Eng shook hand with him. Then Jia Hao asked "You know who am I or not? I am Jia Hao arr...."
Guan Eng was very surprised and replied, no wonder you looked so familiar!(Jia Hao's mum and Guan Eng are cousins!) It is quite funny to see the way Guan Eng reacted.



After that TV3 came and interviewed uncle kit. At the same time Guan Eng has a press conference outside the conferencce room. After TV3 interviewd uncle kit, he was standing there freely. I went up and introduced myself. He replied "oh...you are Chong Zhemin arr....good..." We exchange a few words after that. He told me that there is a conflict between chinese and indians in Penang Xin Zhong primary school.



I took a photo in parliament before leaving. It is indeed a very good experience for me to attend this roundtable meeting. I learnt quite a lot of things especially matters pertaining to law. However the existence of article 121 (1A) made me wonder why does such an ambiguos and unfair law exist in our country? If you are interested in article 121 (1A) just check out these sites in kit's blog.You might get more insights from there. Click here, here, here and here.