Freedom Summit
Malaysia Freedom Summit 2018
The 4th annual Malaysia Freedom Summit (MFS) was held in Kuala Lumpur, 1 December 2018, in the Parliament House. This event is conducted by the Institute for Leadership and Development Studies (LEAD).
Officiated by the Speaker of Parliament, YB Dato' Mohamad Ariff bin Md Yusof, the MFS was also attended by university students from different universities, NGOs, academicians, and officials.
One of the crucial focus of this year's Summit is the parliamentary reform as a prerequisite for Malaysia's reform.
The issue of parliamentary reform is important since the parliament is the place where the laws and regulations are formulated and considerations and raised from various different views. The parliament needs to review the law diligently which takes a lengthy process and time. In the course of this 5 years, there is a hope that the public can see the positive development of the law and can be in accordance with the international standard. That said, the cultural context is an important priority in formulating laws.
The establishment of a Select Committees in the parliament provides a space in involving parliamentarians in formulating laws. These 6 Select Committees enables parliamentarians to conduct healthy debates in the process of formulating laws.
Besides the establishment of these Select Committees, another reform process is the establishment of the Reform & Governance Caucus which is also important in this whole reform process.
Currently, the works of the parliaments in the Parliament House can be accessed through the parliament website. This enables the public to witness and monitor the debates being held in Parliament.
Nowadays, there are numerous universities assigning their students to conduct dissertation research related to the parliament, and these students are interested to do so because the debates in parliament have now flourished and become more developed and relevant with the current situation in Malaysia.
Furthermore, school students also often visits the Parliament House to listen to the debates and discussions. This proves an important point that the parliament has become more open and transparent of their work and performance.