Parliament may follow British system, says Deputy Speaker - The Star

By Sim Leoi Leoi, Loong Meng Yee and Paul Choo

KUALA LUMPUR: Parliament should sit for the whole year to give MPs more time to debate and pass Bills.

This was the suggestion of Deputy Speaker Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar who said that in the new Parliament, more MPs were taking their time to debate Bills.

“For this meeting, we have had to postpone several Bills which were supposed to be debated to the next meeting because of time constraint.

“Maybe we will have to do a Westminster-style Parliament which sits for the whole year with holidays in between,” he told reporters at the Parliament lobby here yesterday.

He said that in Malaysia, Parliament meetings are fixed for three times a year.

Parliament had to struggle to finish debating and passing the Supplementary Supply Bill and the Pensions (Amendment) Bill despite the Dewan sitting for an extra two days.

[More at http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/30/nation/21402778&sec=nation]