Dummipedia, the simplified free online encyclopedia
The Federal Constitution of Malaysia, comprising 181 articles in 14 parts, is supposedly the supreme law of Malaysia (see Wikisource for the full text). The original Constitution of 1957 was drafted by the Reid Commission as a result of a deal brokered by Tunku Abdul Rahman in London in 1956 with the British for the independence of the Federation of Malaya. The Malayan delegation comprised four representatives of the Malay Rulers and three other ministers.
2. Although the Constitution ensures that "in an independent Malaya, all nationals should be accorded equal rights, privileges and opportunities and there must not be discrimination on grounds of race and creed," special Malay privileges were provided as a form of affirmative action under Article 153 of the Constitution.[1] Often considered to be part of the social contract, the Reid Commission suggested that these provisions would be temporary in nature and be revisited in 15 years, and that a report should be presented to the appropriate legislature (currently the Parliament of Malaysia) and that the "legislature should then determine either to retain or to reduce any quota or to discontinue it entirely." Although Article 153 would have been up for review in 1972, it remained unreviewed due to the May 13 Incident.
3. Article 160 has an important impact on Islam in Malaysia and the Malay people, due to its definition of a Malay person under clause 2. The article defines a Malay as "a Malaysian citizen born to a Malaysian citizen who professes to be a Muslim, habitually speaks the Malay language, adheres to Malay customs, and is domiciled in Malaysia or Singapore." As a result, Malay citizens who convert out of Islam are no longer considered Malay under the law and are not entitled to any special privileges. Likewise, a non-Malay Malaysian who converts to Islam can lay claim to special privileges (e.g. Mahathir bin Mohamad, whose father is an Indian immigrant from Kerala), provided he meets the other conditions.
4. The Constitution of Malaya, with significant amendments, was used as the basis for the Constitution of Malaysia when Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak, and Singapore merged to form Malaysia in 1963. According to constitutional scholar Shad Saleem Faruqi, the original Constitution has been amended 42 times over the 48 years since independence (as of 2005). As several amendments were made each time, he estimates the true number of individual amendments to be around 650. Shad has stated that there is no doubt that the spirit of the original document has been diluted.[1] This sentiment has been echoed by other legal scholars who argue that important parts of the original Constitution, such as jus soli (right of birth) citizenship, a limitation on the variation of the number of electors in constituencies, and Parliamentary control of emergency powers have been so modified or altered by amendments that "the present Federal Constitution bears only a superficial resemblance to its original model".[1] more... at Wikipedia
