 The Prime Minister is appointed by the YDPA by exercising his discretion.

 Based on Article 40(2)(a) of FC.

 The YDPA in appointing the Prime Minister is expected to appoint Perdana Menteri (PM) from
Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) who in his judgement is likely to command the
confidence of the majority of that House.
 Based on Article 43(2) of FC.
 All in all, although the constitution gives the YDPA discretionary power to appoint the PM
(government) in practice, it is not necessarily in the case.
 If the situation in the House is clear, the power of appointment belonging to YDPA is essentially
a mere formality.
 However, there are also two situation that YDPA may act on his own discretionary in appointing
and dismissing a Prime Minister.
 The first situation will be on emergency situation such as there is no more Prime Minister or
other Deputy Prime Minister was unable to perform the task to preside the Cabinet anymore, the
YDPA may assign an interim Prime Minister.
 The second situation will be on when a Prime Minister had vote of no confidence, but refuse to
resign.
 In 1975 Australian constitutional crisis, Gough Whitlam from the Australian Labor Party was
dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kehr, who then commissioned the Leader of the
opposition Malcolm Fraser of the Liberal Party, as caretaker Prime Minister.

 The constitution says nothing about the dismissal of the PM (government).

 However, the Reid Commission did mention dismissal but it was in the context of a PM
(government) that has lost the confidence of the House but nonetheless refuses to resign.
 The commission gave the YDPA power to sack such a PM (government).
 Art 43(4) of FC.
 Art 43(5) of FC.

 In the case of 1966 Sarawak constitutional Crisis, Stephen Kalong Ningkan v Tun Abang
Haji Openg & Tawi Sli, the crisis was started by a group of politicians who were dissatisfied
towards Stephen Kalong Ningkan’s leadership as chief minister.
 Ningkan was later removed from the chief minister post by the Governor of Sarawak.
 However, Ningkan was reinstated by the High Court.
 He was ousted from the chief minister office and was replaced by Tawi Sli as the new chief
minister.
 The method used up was motion of no confidence against Stephen Kalong Ningkan and resulted
in state of emergency declared in Sarawak, amendment of Sarawak state constitution and
removal of Ningkan from chief minister post.

 The first reason that why prime minister is so powerful is that Prime Minister has the greatest
power in appointing people to handling a post for political purposes.
 Art 43(2)(b) of FC
 Art 122B of FC
 Art 122AB of FC
 Art 43(C) of FC
 Art 145(1) of FC

 The Prime Minister may also require a minister to resign at any time for any reason he thinks fit.
 If the ministers refuse to comply, the Prime Minister may advice the YDPA to dismiss him or
her.
 In the case of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim v Perdana Menteri 1998, the court held that the
letter of dismissal need not come from the YDPA, it was sufficient for the Monarch to be
informed before the PM dismisses his colleague.
 Art 45(1) of FC, the Prime Minister chooses the 43 senators who are appointed by the King or
YDPA to the Senate.

 The second reason that why PM is so powerful is that Prime Minister had almost full control on
the Cabinet.
 The PM can determine when the Cabinet shall meet and what shall or shall not be discussed.
 He is entitled to say what issues shall be referred to him personally for decision outside Cabinet.
 Inter-departmental disputes or deadlocks in Cabinet committees may be resolved by his informal
rulings.
 Hence, the PM has almost total control over the conduct of Cabinet.
 The PM is not bound by Cabinet advice.
 He may be personal initiative face his colleagues with fait accompli.
 Many decisions are taken by the Prime Minister alone or by him after consulting one or two
ministers in his “inner Cabinet”.
 The Prime Minister create committees of the Cabinet, choose their membership, prescribe their
terms of reference and give them decision making power.
 He may preside overcome committees.
 He may create an advisory body of outsiders to counsel him on any particular matter.
 These developments mark a diminution of the Cabinet position as the ultimate seat of executive
power.

 The third reason why the Prime Minister is so powerful is that Prime Minister is the protocol of
Malaysia and any major event to Malaysia, Prime Minister will be the one who represents
Malaysia to present that event.

 The fourth reason why the Prime Minister is so powerful is that in a democratic system, the
inevitability of the electoral test is always a restraining influence on the exercise of the Prime
Minister’s power.
 The FPTP system had made the ruling party to have majority seat in the parliament.
 Therefore, any bill that need to be pass on in order to become the act can be success by the ruling
party as long as PM enforcing the party whips to each of the Mps of the ruling party.

 The fifth reason that why PM is powerful is that PM is the one who do recommendation of any
important position such as Minister in the future election.
 Although election system is used in democratic country like Malaysia and UK, however the
election system is used to elect only Parliament.
 The seat of executive as a Minister or Deputy Minister is appointed by YDPA on the advice of
PM.
 Therefore, position of executive is not democratic elected.

 Wade and Bradley had defined the doctrine of ministerial responsibility as within a democratic
state, those who govern should be responsible to whom they govern.
 Marshall and Moody described ministerial responsibility as ministers are responsible for the
general conduct of government.
 The purpose behind the doctrine is based on the notion that the Government (executive) being
part of Parliament is answerable, accountable and responsible to it for manipulating the state.
 The doctrine of ministerial responsibility is divided into two: collective and individual.
 In England, this doctrine is not founded on law but on conventions of the constitution.
 On the other hand, in Malaysia, collective responsibility is explicitly acknowledged in Article
43(3) of FC.
 As for individual responsibility in Malaysia, it is founded on unwritten conventions and
political norms.

 Lord Salisbury defined the convention as “it is only on the principle that absolute responsibility
is undertaken by every member of the Cabinet, who after a decision is arrived at, remains a
member of it…”
 In a Malaysian context, the convention would refer to situations like all ministers must observe
the convention of public unanimity.
 They must speak with one voice; they must present a united front to the public, to Parliament and
to the YDPA.
 The advice to the Monarch should be unanimous.

 Firstly, the executive must be unanimous with all their decisions outside the Cabinet which they
should be a collectively cabinet as a whole and must always speak in one voice and unanimous.
 They might only disagree themselves on the issues in the Cabinet meeting but not outside the
Cabinet.
 This is to ensure the stability of the government, to prevent the loss of confident from the
investors and to ensure that the government to accountable to the parliament.
 However, there are also exceptions which allow the cabinet member to differ their opinions such
as in a controversial issue or any issues that important to country.
 In UK, the executive is allowed to differ their opinions in the matter of European Union in the
year of 1973.
 The minister that differ their opinion without permission in public is needed to resign.
 In the case of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, he was asked to resign as a Deputy Prime Minister.
 During the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, Anwar, as financial minister, supported the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) PLAN.
 However, Mahathir support currency control and tighter regulation of foreign investment.
 Collective ministerial responsibility might maintain unanimity.
 Normally, old government that contains experienced will maintain these responsibilities.
 However, the adverse impact for too unanimous will be destroy of individual ministerial
responsibility.
 For example, the Ministry of Transport had proposed to darken the window of the vehicles, when
there is any incident occurs, the collective ministerial responsibility may take away the
individual ministerial responsibility and policy errors and departmental errors might not lead to
any resignation of minister.

 The second to be discussed will be on the government as a whole must resign as a whole if no
confidence motion is passed through cabinet.
 This can be happened when the core of the manifesto of the party is not turn into realization.
 For instance, bill cannot be passed through in Budget of every year and this creates no
confidence motion against government and government may resign.
 Unanimity is used to ensure the resignation of the government as a whole for every major
mistake that had been done by the government.
 In Malaysia, we do not tend to follow this as the weakness of the electoral system which is the
FPTP electoral system which allow big number of seats to be given for the ruling party.
 There is no way to pass no confidence motion against the ruling party due to too many seats
given to the ruling party from the electoral system.
 However, there are several incidents that occurs in the state level such as Perak and Sarawak.
 In Perak, 3 state assembly members from the Pakatan Rakyat in the Perak Legislative state have
resigned from their respective parties.
 2 of them resigned from PKR while the third left the DAP.
 With these shifts, the number of seats held by PR has now been reduced from 31to 28.
 The BN still keeps the originally 28, with the remaining 3 having declared themselves as so-
called independents.

 The third to be discussed will be on whatever within the cabinet, must end within cabinet.
 This is due to cabinet meeting might discuss some of the important event such as national
securities, public interest and home ministry.
 This controversial issue might lead to chaos and the citizens might scare.
 This is also important to maintain the 1 st aspect of collective ministerial responsibility which is
the unanimity.
 Official Secret Act is a statute prohibiting the spread of information classified as an official
secret.
 However, in Malaysia, there are some leaking information from the civil servant and political
secretary by dirty tactics of political party.
 For example, former servant Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz and the ministers of Economic Affairs,
Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali’s video clip for alleged sex affair had been leaked.

 Individual responsibility is refer to a number of rules and practices for example, each minister
is responsible to parliament for the conduct of his or her department, and for actions carried out
by the department in pursuit of governmental policies or in discharge of responsibilities laid
down upon him or her as a minister.
 In other words, minister are responsible for everything which occurs in their areas of
responsibility, including decisions and actions taken by civil servants.
 The rationale behind the convention of individual ministerial responsibility is to develop
accountability and responsibility of individual ministers to Parliament and the electorate as well.
 Individual ministerial responsibility is divided into two parts which is individual responsibility
for policy and administration and individual responsibility for personal conduct.
 Individual responsibility for policy and administration means that the minister who is the
head of ministry, who speaks in Parliament on behalf of his or her department.
 He or she is accountable regardless of whether he or she was directly involved in the process.
 Individual responsibility for a personal conduct means that a minister shall be responsible for his
or personal conduct such as sincerity and honesty.

 Individual ministerial responsibility requires minister to be of full integrity, morally and

ethical upright and be the icon of country as a minister.
 If minister are willing to resign for the wrongdoing of personal conduct, we can conclude that we
could upright the individual ministerial responsibility.
 In the affair of Cecil Parkinson and Sara Keays, both of them had been having a long-running
affair with Mr Parkinson and that she was carrying his child.
 Mr Parkinson was instead put in charge of the trade and industry department.
 He resigned a few months later, when the affair became public.
 Sara Keays said that Mr.Parkinson had promised to leave his wife and marry her and had
pressured her to have an abortion, but that she had refused.

 In the affair of David Mellor and Antonia de Sancha, Mellor had been conducting an affair
with a 31-year-old actress, Antonia de Sancha.
 The affair with Mellor was a contributory factor in his subsequent resignation from the cabinet in
1992.

 The third affair is the Profumo Affair.

 It was a British political scandal that originated with a brief sexual relationship in 1961 between
John Profumo, the secretary of state of war, Chistine Keeler, a 19-year-old model.
 Profumo’s denial of any misconduct, in a personal statement to the House of Commons, was
refuted a few weeks later with his admission of the truth.
 He resigned from the government and from Parliament.

 The fourth affair to be discussed will be on Tim Yeo scandals.

 Mr Yeo had fathered an illegitimate daughter at the age of 22 to a fellow student in 1967.
 The Child wad adopted almost immediately, but Mr Yeo has spoken to his former lover in recent
days because their relationship was about to become public knowledge.
 Senior officers of his South Suffolk constituency met in session, and one of them involved in the
move that compelled Mr Yeo to resign his ministerial post.

 The fifth scandal to be discussed will be in the case of Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek , the sex
scandal involving the former Health Minister of Malaysia has made a hotel that is popular with
politicians and royalty attention.
 Datuk Seri Dr Chua engaged in an extra-marital affair with an unidentified young woman.
 In 2008, he formally announced his resignation from all posts at a press conference.
 However, there are also scandals that involving minister that did not uphold the individual
ministerial responsibility which is refuse to resign.
 In the scandals of Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali, there are still unknown in Malaysia’s now
infamous sex-video scandal, which pitted political heavyweights Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali
against each other.
 The second case of departmental error was in the case of Michael Fagan.
 Michael Fagan rudely invade Queen’s bedroom.
 It was absolutely clear to everybody that responsibility lay with the Home Secretary, and
William Whitelaw had no doubt that it was his duty to offer his resignation.
 It was refused, but the responsibility was undisputed.

 The third case to be discussed will be on Maze Prison escape.

 38 Provisional Irish Republican Army prisoners escaped from H-Block of the prison.
 One prison officer died due to heart attack during the escape and twenty others were injured,
including two were shot with guns that had been smuggled into the prison.
 A British government minister faced calls to resign.
 However, the official inquiry into the escape placed most of the blame onto prison staff, who in
turned the escape on political interference in the running of the prison.

 In policy errors, the first to be discussed will be on Edwina Currie.

 She told that most of the eggs production in this country sadly is now infected with salmonella.
 Sales of eggs plummeted 60 per cent overnight.
 The loss of revenues forced farmers to slaughter 4 million hens and destroy 400 million
unwanted eggs.
 The true fact was risk of getting salmonella from eating an eggs was less than one in 200 million.
 Ms Currie resigned on 17 December.

 The second to be discussed will be on Falklands: Lord Carrington, Richard Luce, Humphrey
Atkins.
 Following the Argentine military attack on the Falkland Islands in 1982, the Foreign Secretary,
Lord Carrington and two junior Foreign Office Ministers, Humphrey Atkins and Richard Luce,
resigned.