KUALA LUMPUR: Too much power now lies with the federal government, said the nation’s longest serving member of parliament.

So much so, the nation had now become the problem it first united to resist, Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah told a packed constitutional law forum on Thursday, March 11.

"Putrajaya behaves as if we are a unitary state and not a federation. Ironically, we have become in practice the Malayan Union an earlier generation resisted and defeated," said the Gua Musang MP.

"The autonomy of the states, their rights to development and to the husbandry of their own resources, and the proper role of the rulers and the way in which religion is governed in public life are displaced in favour of increasingly centralised and absolute power.

"This is unconstitutional and must be resisted with just as much vigour as we resisted the Malayan Union. Malaysia is not viable in the long run as a unitary state," he explained.

The Umno MP was one of three panellists at the Bar Council's Constitutional Law Committee-organised forum entitled Federal–State Relations: Should states be given more power?

The forum is the third instalment of the Bar Council's efforts to educate citizens and create awareness about their constitutional rights.

According to Tengku Razaleigh, power was now over-concentrated in the prime minister.

"Our federal arrangements provide for a fine balance between state and federal powers, which provide multiple levels of assurance for the rights of citizens.

"That balance has been removed as power has been concentrated in the federal government. Within the federal government that power has come to be centralised in the executive. In the executive, that power is concentrated in the hands of the prime minister."

He said that before asking if states should be given more power, the states should first have their constitutional rights restored.

"We are now, for most intents and purposes, a federation in name only.

"The central government hands out allocations that belong by right to the states as if these were gifts from on high. State governments are starved of resources, particularly if they are governed by the opposition. How has this happened?" he said.

Veteran lawyer and constitutional expert Sulaiman Abdullah said that all power should be limited.

"And if that power cannot be limited then it should not be concentrated in the centre," he added.

Although he believed that the states under Pakatan Rakyat (PR) could be "more creative" in moving within the confines of the law, he admitted that state powers had been diluted.

Citing the Federal Constitution's Article 45 (1), Sulaiman said prior to an amendment, states used to have majority control of Dewan Negara with 22 senators (two for each of the 11 states) while 16 were appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

"But after an amendment and enlargement of the Senate to 70 senators, states now have a smaller percentage of the Dewan Negara," said the former Bar Council president.

Currently, 26 senators are appointed from 13 states with another two from the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur and one each for Putrajaya and Labuan while the Agong gets to appoint 40.

"Somehow or rather, Agong gets his advice from the federal government who in turn appoints politicians who have lost in the general elections."

But Sulaiman also chided Barisan Nasional and PR for their choice of senators.

"Where are the Tokoh Guru or presidents of the Malaysian Medical Association or other distinguished Malaysians? Most appointees seem to be borne out of political considerations," he said.

Another constitutional expert Malik Imtiaz Sarwar also felt that states should be more bold and creative with the issue.

"The federal government has assumed power only because states have handed it to them over time. It's just a matter of will to take it back," he said.

Citing the Printing Presses and Publications Act as an example, Malik said that states can print their own newspapers if they wanted to as the law allows it.

"But other than Selangor none of the other states have their own papers," he added.

Currently, only Selangor prints its own newspaper Selangorkini, but it is only distributed once a month.

"The states can also pass their own Freedom of Information Act and begin declassifying certain documents classified under the previous governments. After they have passed their own Freedom of Information Act, then the federal government may be compelled to do the same," he added.