'Azizah must be appointed based on 1992 royal deal'

 

Selangor ruler Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah has to consent to the appointment of Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the menteri besar because he is bound by a document signed in 1992 by his father, the then Selangor sultan.

Constitutional expert Abdul Aziz Bari said today the Declaration of Constitutional Principles, signed by six sultans, agrees that rulers will follow government advice, among other things.

This means, Aziz (left) said, the current sultan "may not" be able to insist on more names to be submitted as candidates for Selangor menteri besar.

"The content binds the rulers until today. It has no legal effect by the document itself but morally, it would be embarrassing for the rulers to ignore it," he said.

"So, in Selangor, the sultan has to appoint (Wan Azizah). Asking for more names, let alone refusing to appoint her, will go against the 1992 declaration and more importantly, the constitution itself."

Aziz said the document was formulated during Umno's tussle with the royalty in the early 1990s.

He said Umno at that time had friction with the Kelantan royal household as it blamed the royalty for having a hand in its defeat in Kelantan in 1990.

An undertaking to abide by constitution

 "The declaration was the result of negotiations between the rulers - led by the late Sultan Azlah Shah and Umno, led by Anwar Ibrahim, who was then an Umno vice-president.

"It was an undertaking, an affirmation by those six rulers to abide by the constitutional provisions pertaining to appointing the government, interference in state administration and business involvement, among others," he said.

Aziz said only the rulers of Kelantan, Kedah and Johor refused to sign the document but the other six rulers signed it.

He described the 1992 document as an attempt by Umno at that time to subdue the palace, which the party saw as a threat to its dominance.

However, Aziz said, the late Perak Sultan (right) did not entirely abide by the 1992 declaration during the state's constitutional crisis in 2009.

"Indeed, the late ruler went against what he himself wrote years before that; namely that dissolution was a matter of course that the sultan never refused," he said.

Sultan Azlan Shah had refused then Perak menteri besar Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin's request to dissolve the state assembly after three Pakatan representatives sided with BN to give it the majority.