Topic 6: rights, privileges and liberties in the federal constitution

48 Pages • Complete Study Notes • Year Uploaded: 2021

Rights = entitlement, cannot be withdrawn Privileges = granted bc of membership of certain demographic/society Liberty = connotes freedom 1. THE SOCIAL CONTRACT i. Historical Background Originally used in liberal and humanist political theory (e.g. John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government) to explain the existence and purposes of government. It connotes the idea of individuals coming together to establish common institutions for mutual benefit. In the context of Malaysia, however, “the social contract” has a somewhat different meaning. The “social contract” in Malaysia refers to the implicit and binding understanding between the Malay and non-Malay communities with regard to the founding principles of the then Federation of Malaya (and later Malaysia). = interethnic bargain The original social contract was enshrined in the terms of the 1957 Merdeka Constitution. This social contract was substantially modified in 1970 and 1971 with the addition of the so-called “Rukunegara amendments” to the Constitution. The 1957 social contract was negotiated by the leaders of the race-based political parties at the time, namely the UMNO, the MCA and the MIC. These leaders had a particularly strong mandate to represent their respective communities in the negotiations due to their landslide win in the 1955 federal elections (in which the Alliance secured all but one of the seats). The context in which the social contract was negotiated was one in which people were represented communally and the leaders of each community sought to achieve accommodation and compromise between their demands and those of the other communities.

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