PARLIAMENT must convene after the MPs get their Covid-19 shots, DAP lawmaker Chan Foong Hin said.

The Kota Kinabalu MP said there would be no reason to bar sittings after the House is fully vaccinated and that one could be called as early as May.

“Upon completion of Phase 1 of the immunisation programme, there is no longer any reason to withhold or suspend parliamentary sittings. Phase 1 will run from February 26 until April,” he said in a statement today.

“Parliament should reconvene in May, immediately after the end of Phase 1.”

As a further precaution, all parliamentary officers and assistants to elected representatives attending parliament should also be given the vaccine, he added.

Parliament is suspended while the country is in a state of emergency declared by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the advice of the government. Emergency rule was ostensibly required to manage the coronavirus crisis but critics charged the move was to keep Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin in office after he lost majority support in parliament.

The emergency is to end on August 1 or earlier if the outbreak eases.

Muhyiddin promised to give elected representatives priority for inoculation when the doses arrive this month. The lawmakers will receive the jabs along with the front-liners in the first phase of the vaccination campaign.

Even though emergency laws would still be in effect, parliament could sit, said Chan, citing article 150(5) of the federal constitution which allows the legislature to make laws during a state of emergency.

“The declaration of a state of emergency should not put democracy and rule of law at peril, and therefore parliamentary sittings must go on even during the state of emergency. 

“There are many agendas that are overdue, such as the tabling of the 12th Malaysia Plan (2021-2025) and perhaps even the tabling of a supplementary budget for 2021 to deal with the increase of Covid-19 cases.”

Chan added that the public are “getting angry” that MPs were being paid but not doing their jobs. – February 17, 2021.