PETALING JAYA: Perlis Speaker Rus’sele Eizan has absolute discretion to vacate the seats of the three PAS state assemblymen who signed the statutory declaration (SD), and the state assembly can be considered a hung assembly, says a political expert.
The constitutional expert also said the three PAS state assemblymen were not expelled from the party but lost their membership for failing to comply with party directives as elected representatives.
Political scientist Prof Wong Chin Huat of Sunway University said that by ceasing to be PAS members, the trio has vacated their seats under the State Constitution, and the Speaker has the discretion to consider their seats vacant and notify the Election Commission (EC) of the vacancies.
Under Article 50A of the Perlis State Constitution, a member of the Legislative Assembly shall cease to be a member and his seat shall become vacant as soon as the Speaker determines the date of the vacancy.
The Speaker has the right to declare the seat vacant if the representative resigns from his party, or ceases to be a member of that party.
The three–Chuping assemblyman Saad Seman, Bintong assemblyman Fakhrul Anwar Ismail and Guar Sanji assemblyman Mohd Ridzuan Hashim–had their PAS memberships terminated with immediate effect on Dec 24 after signing statutory declarations (SDs) to retract their support for Mentri Besar Mohd Shukri Ramli.
Five Bersatu assemblymen had also signed the SDs.
Rus’sele said on Thursday (Dec 25) that he would notify the commission of the vacancies soon, and that it would be up to the commission to call for elections.
Wong said that, following the Speaker's announcement, the state legislative assembly would now be a hung assembly, with PAS holding six seats, Bersatu five, one PKR seat and three vacant.
“Based on Section 15A of PAS' party constitution, I would say the PAS trio have expired their membership automatically.
“The key distinction between 'expulsion' and 'ceasing to be a member' is that the former involves discretion of the disciplinary committee, while the latter is automatic application of the rule.
“One common example of the latter is failure to pay membership dues. You just cease to be a party member if you fail to pay membership dues. You just expire.
“So, if PAS has made it 'automatic termination', without a discretionary process (like a show-cause letter), then yes, the trio would lose their state seats,” he explained.
“Why is this distinction important? This is to prevent party leaders from abusing their discretionary power to sack their rivals.
“Automatic termination means the persons involved knowingly take an action that would lead to the consequence of membership termination. In other words, the one who loses party membership chooses the consequences, as he or she is doing it voluntarily.
“If expelled, he or she would have been involuntarily expelled for that action,” said Wong.
He also noted that the Speaker had stated that there may be no by-election because the state legislature has entered its fourth year.
“The two-year exemption of by-election applies in normal circumstances where the legislative majority is unaffected.
“In this case, PAS has only six state assemblymen after losing three, whereas the opposition now has six as well.
“This unequivocally makes it clear that the three by-elections are necessary,” said Wong.
Eight assemblymen from the state government itself were said to have submitted a statutory declaration (SD) to the Raja of Perlis last week, informing the Ruler that they had withdrawn their support for the Mentri Besar.
Technically, without the support of the eight assemblymen, Mohd Shukri would lose a simple majority, thus be unable to remain as Mentri Besar.
