Dewan Rakyat Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia told a press conference here today that the move was part of proposed parliamentary reforms.

Each minister would be given half an hour to answer questions posed that must be provided to the House’s secretary 24 hours prior to question time.

During the session, each lawmaker would be given a maximum of one minute to pose their question, while ministers would be allocated three minutes to answer.

“This reform is to erase the public’s negative perception of Parliament. It has been alleged that the House does not provide enough time and space for MPs to pose their queries.”

Pandikar had initially named the special session “Prime Minister’s Question Time” but decided against it as other ministers may answer on behalf of Najib occasionally.

“It’s the same thing. In any country, when a question is addressed to the prime minister, it doesn’t necessarily mean that other ministers are not allowed to answer as well.”

This session was one of four reforms that the Dewan Rakyat proposed to the government. Three proposals had received the Cabinet’s green light in January and, according to Pandikar, would be tabled for debate some time during Parliament’s current sitting.

The two other proposed reforms are a Special Chamber to debate matters of urgent public importance, and the shortened period for MPs to submit questions they wished to present to the House from 14 days to 10.

The fourth is still being debated by the Cabinet and concerns a suggestion to form new committees over and above existing ones.