KUALA LUMPUR: The Parliamentary Services Act (PSA), aimed at granting autonomy to Parliament in managing its affairs, is expected to be tabled in the next sitting of Dewan Rakyat.
Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Johari Abdul confirmed that the Cabinet recently approved the matter.
"We will try to table it (the bill) latest during the third sitting. We tried to table it during the second sitting (current sitting) but the matter (draft of the bill) was just approved by the Cabinet.
"Therefore we will see it (the tabling of the bill) by then (the third session of Dewan Rakyat)," he said in his speech during the launch of the 2023 Annual Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Sustainable Development Goals (APPGM-SDG).
Previously, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said had expressed hopes for PSA to materialise this year, stating that it was important for PSA to be enacted as it enables it to be more independent structurally.
The bill was also expected to be tabled during the current sitting in June.
PSA was introduced in 1963 to allow Parliament to act as an independent body and manage its own affairs, including hiring and finances, but was repealed in 1992.
On March 13, Azalina told Parliament that the bill was nearing completion and the Act was 90 per cent ready.
In February, Johari said the bill might be tabled during this current sitting as the draft of the bill was ready, but some matters needed to be ironed out before it could be tabled.
Calls to revive the law had been aired for a few years among members of parliament, including former Senate president Tan Sri Rais Yatim.
