Motion of No Confidence against PM

Up-dated:

Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) MP for Sepanggar Datuk Eric Majimbun will tabled a no confidence vote against Prime Minister in Parliament on Monday. During SAPP's president Datuk Yong Teck Lee Press conference today, he did not name who of the party's two MPs would move the motion. But an official told me that it will Majimbun, now oversea, who will be given the honour to do so.

Deputy Speaker Datuk Ronald Kiandee confirmed Parliament resumes sitting Monday but said so far there had been no notice for such a motion to be tabled on that day.

How is a motion tabled in Parliament?
DAP's Lim Kit Siang has this in his blog and I quote -

"The Parliamentary Standing Orders do not have special provision for a no confidence motion.

In the circumstances, a no confidence motion may be regarded as an ordinary motion under Standing Order 27 which requires notice of 14 days to be given – making it impossible for such a no confidence motion to be tabled on Monday, June 23, 2008 as the earliest would be July 2 if the no confidence motion is submitted today.

Standing Order 18 which allows an MP to move a motion to adjourn the House to discuss a definite matter of urgent public importance will be inappropriate and unhelpful as it only allows one hour debate on the specified issue without any vote being taken at the end of the debate.

The only way for a no confidence motion to be tabled and debated on Monday is for the Speaker to treat it as a substantive and extraordinary motion which should take precedence and priority over all parliamentary business which does not need to comply with the requisite 14-day notice and publishing it as the first item of parliamentary business after Question Time in the Parliamentary Order of Business on Monday.

In doing so, however, the Speaker is likely be in direct loggerheads with the government of the day and must be prepared to pay the consequences of such decision."