AFTER months of speculation, signature campaigns and false alarms, Marang MP Abdul Hadi Awang’s controversial RUU355 bill has been slotted as the first order of business after the daily question-and-answer session today.

The motion is expected to debut before noon. 

Standing on top of today’s Dewan Rakyat order paper, which can be downloaded from http://www.parlimen.gov.my/index.php?lang=en, is Hadi’s private member’s bill to amend the Shariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965.

The order paper states that Hadi requests permission from the Dewan Rakyat to propose a private member’s bill to amend the Shariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965.

The motion proposes to amend Section 2 of the act by replacing the words “imprisonment for a term exceeding three years or with any fine exceeding five thousand ringgit or with whipping exceeding six strokes” with “imprisonment for a term exceeding 30 years or with any fine exceeding one hundred thousand ringgit or with whipping exceeding 100 strokes”.

The Dewan Rakyat held a marathon session of some 20 hours yesterday, ending at 5am today.

Several government bills were debated before the house was adjourned at 5am. Among the bills were the Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill 2017, Tourism Tax Bill 2017, Land Public Transport (Amendment) Bill 2017 and the Commercial Vehicles Licensing Board (Amendment) Bill 2017.

Last week, Barisan Nasional president and Prime Minister Najib Razak said the government will not be tabling the RUU355 amendments. The prime minister said this after meeting with the other BN component parties in Kuala Lumpur.

Najib added that it would be up to Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin on whether to allow the motion to be debated in Parliament.

Yesterday, former Sungai Benut MP Tawfik Ismail served Pandikar and Dewan Rakyat secretary Roosme Hamzah a legal notice on his suit against them.

Tawfik filed a suit against the two on March 31. In the suit, he said Hadi’s bill had failed to follow parliamentary procedures and was flawed.

He said Hadi’s motion would create a collateral jurisdiction affecting the national policy on criminal law and punishments under Islamic law. – April 6, 2017.