KUALA LUMPUR, Sep - Ousted Perak speaker, V. Sivakumar who fears interference from the state secretary, says he is committed to holding an assembly sitting inside the state secretariat building in Ipoh tomorrow.
“I'll go ahead with it,” he told The Malaysian Insider over the phone this evening.
Sivakumar had failed in his bid to get the Ipoh High Court to issue a restraining order against Datuk Abdul Rahman Hashim earlier this afternoon.
Sivakumar said past attempts by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state lawmakers to hold meetings inside the state secretariat building had been effectively blocked by Abdul Rahman — from the last inquiry by its rights and privileges committee, which he also helms, to the March 3 sitting which ended with the infamous gathering by PR assemblymen under a nearby rain tree.
He charges the state secretary, who heads the civil service in Perak, to be biased towards the rival Barisan Nasional (BN) faction.
“During the March 3 sitting, the Ipoh OCPD said that the State Secretary authorised him to prevent the Assembly from sitting,” Sivakumar said in his press statement.
“We didn't want them to do the same thing,” he told The Malaysian Insider.
Judicial Commissioner Tarmizi Abd Rahman, who heard the case in his chambers, rejected the bid after Perak state legal adviser Datuk Ahmad Kamal Md Shahid opposed the application and asked for 14 days to file affidavits.
Instead, he fixed October 1 to hear the matter, dismissing arguments from Sivalkumar's counsel, Chan Kok Keong, that the issue would be made redundant by then.
Sivakumar, who is also the state assemblyman for Tronoh, was the first ethnic Indian elected to the speaker's seat following the fledgling Pakatan Rakyat's (PR) landslide victory in the general elections last year.
He said he had already notified all the state lawmakers, including from the rival Barisan Nasional (BN) faction, of tomorrow's sitting, and would proceed with “Plan A” — which is to head to the state secretariat on Jalan Panglima Bukit Gantang in Ipoh and try to hold the assembly at 10am tomorrow.
He admitted that he does not know what will happen tomorrow.
“I don't want to speculate,” Sivakumar said.
But he added that he had a back-up plan to hold the assembly elsewhere. He refused to reveal further details.
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