THE Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 (POTA), was passed recently after much criticism of the bill by the opposition. Strangely, despite all that talk of human rights abuse and injustice, when it came to the division bell, 28 members of parliament from Pakatan were absent. Whatever the excuse, if they do not support the bill they could have voted against it or abstained, thus clearly, on the record at least, demonstrated that they had performed their duty as elected representatives of the people; that all the protesting is genuine. Instead, despite the very nature of the job ” that of attending Parliament and being part of its debates when the august House is in session these MPs who are provided with an allowance for the purpose, were absent. In their defence a DAP MP argued that with or without them, the bill would have been passed because the government holds the majority.
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