Special position of Malays should be reviewed every 15 years – Tunku Abdul Rahman to Lord Reid on 27/9/1956. But abused by UMNO for 53 years now.DAP Chairman Karpal Singh had asked the Federal Government to give a time frame for the gradual removal of special privileges accorded to Malays and other bumiputeras in the spirit of equality under the 1 Malaysia concept (The Sun 5/4/2010 at page 6 and Utusan Malaysia 7/4/10 at page 9).
For this the UMNO sponsored Perkasa is going to lodge a police report against Karpal (UM 7/4/2010 at page 9).
The answer lies in the historical facts as revealed in our Public Forum on 50 Years of Violations of The Malaysian Federal Constitution By UMNO controlled Government (Based on declassified documents from the public records office, Kew, London) dated on 28/07/2007.
At the hearing (and presentation to the Reid Commission) of the Alliance Party on 27/9/1956 at 10.00 a.m Tun Abdul Razak had presented that the special position of the Malays should be reviewed 15 years after independence.
At the minutes of the meeting with the Reid Commission again on 27/9/1956:
Chairman: Are you putting any period of compulsory review?
Tunku Abdul Rahman:- the suggestion is that there should be a review every 15 years.
Chairman: The main thing the special position of Malays should be reviewed every 15 years for Federal and State.
Tunku: Yes
Article 153 of the Federal Constitution is silent on this review of the Malay special position every 15 years. In the circumstances we have to go by the Tranvaux Preparations ie by perusing the documents minutes of meeting etc to establish the intention of the parties or stakeholders of the Federal Constitution. Just like how when there is an ambiguity in the Law the Courts going back to the Parliamentary Hansard to establish the true intention of Parliament in interpreting the law.
But in this case the position is very clear, it is unambiguous – The Malay special privileges was originally meant to be for 15 years and to be reviewed on the 15th year. But it was never reviewed by UMNO in the 15th year. And it still proceeding on full steam and in fact trampling on even the basic and fundamental rights of the poor Indians in Malaysia on a day to day basis by UMNO.
So much so that the Indians have been denied most of the State funded educational opportunities, licences, permits, panel-ship with the government, banks, business opportunities, ten acre Felda like land ownership schemes, job opportunities in the government, government linked companies (GLC) and even the UMNO and non UMNO controlled private sector.
But now the UMNO sponsored Perkasa lodges 14 police reports nationwide against Karpal (The Malay Mail 7/4/2010 at page 5).
P. Uthayakumar
