THE Attorney-General (AG) should be a Member of Parliament (MP), says former law minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim on X on Sunday (Dec 22).
This is to ensure accountability in the public prosecutor’s office.
It must be said, however, that the suggestion isn’t new.
In July 2021, it was said that the AG should be ideally an MP, a move mooted by former prime minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein when he was the deputy prime minister.
Guess who said that?
It was Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, then the Dewan Rakyat deputy speaker.
The AG should be an MP so as to hold the AG accountable to Parliament directly.
The late Abdul Razak, when he was the prime minister, appointed Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Yusoff as the Minister for Law and AG in 1974. Abdul Kadir was then the MP for Tenggaroh. He had been the AG since 1963.
Abdul Kadir was succeeded as the AG by Tan Sri Hamzah Abu Samah, who was then the MP for Temerloh. Abdul Kadir and Hamzah were lawyers by training. Hamzah was the last AG-MP.
Azalina said she was making a public statement on the matter because “no one up there cares” about what she had to say.
Now that she is “up there”, does no one still not care about appointing an AG from among MPs? -December 23, 2024
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