If you have ever attended the debate at our Legislative Council, you would have noticed that the atmosphere is a lot more formal with real decorum than any of those theatrics and sometimes violent scenes that you see in parliament houses of other countries (or territory?) like Taiwan. We don’t see our YBs hurl abuses at each other or like you see in Taiwan Parliament some of them even end up trading punches. Parliament as a very important branch of Government should actually place itself with dignity as it is part of a symbol of a sovereign country. After all that is the place where the laws of the land debated and get enacted. I am very glad since the very beginning of our Majlis Mesyuarat Negeri (now Majlis Mesyuarat Negara) we have not seen such unsightly incidents.
I am very sure that every legislative council or parliament of any country has a set of rules on how it runs its debate. In Brunei, the Constitution provides a subsidiary legislation (which is a kind of a “smaller” law) that governs the conduct of proceedings of the Council and its called the Standing Orders. When the council is in session, the members or the YBs who are not speaking shall not cross the floor of the Council unnecessarily or read newspapers, books, letters or other documents except those which are directly connected with the business of the Council and if there are no rules provided under the standing orders or the Brunei Constitution, they can actually adopt the practice or rules that are currently being practiced by the House of Commons of the UK Parliament.
So if you have any ambition of becoming a YB in the future, knowing these rules is a good starting ground.
