The King and our Parliamentary system

I was very interested in this post by Liew Chin Tong who is the Member of Parliament for Bukit Bendera in Penang. He was commenting on the King's address during the opening of Parliament on 29 Apr 2008.

It's interesting because he made comparisons between the opening of the parliamentary sessions in Malaysia and Britain, from which we had inherited our system. More than that, Liew's article gave some intriguing historical background which I never knew about. This is the excerpt from Liew's blog, which you can read in full here:

Malaysia's Parliament is an adaptation of the Westminster system. Since the 1920s, the British monarch has opened Parliament to mark the start of its annual session in November, except in an election year which disrupts the cycle. Whereas the Governor-General of Australia opens the Parliament once only at the start of its three-year parliamentary term. In Malaysia, the annual session usually begins in March.

But there is a stark difference between the opening of the Malaysian and British Parliaments. The British monarch addresses the members of the Commons and Lords in the House of Lords Chamber. There is an interesting history behind the choice of Upper House as the site of opening.

The British monarch is by convention ‘disallowed’ to enter the Commons since 1642 when King Charles I attempted to arrest five leading members of the Commons for treason.

The British speaker, therefore, voices his allegiance to Parliament rather than to the monarch and hence established the independence of Parliament.

Although the our King’s Royal Address is made by the monarch, the content of the speech is entirely drafted by the Malaysian government and approved by the cabinet and details the government's policies and possibly the Bills it will introduce in the next session. This is explicitly manifested in the ceremony of submission of the text by the prime minister to the monarch.

In short, the Royal Address is our version of the American president’s State of the Union address, but read by the monarch.

P.S. When I was browsing Liew's blog, I also noticed this little comment that had slipped in almost unnoticed: "... Singapore is a country in name only. The reality is that the Singapore Government is a glorified city council." Ha ha ha ha ha ...