Presidential Council For Minority Rights
The Presidential Council for Minority Rights (PCMR) is a non-elected body established in 1970 under Part VII of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore to fulfil the roles of safeguarding minority rights and advising the Government and the Parliament of Singapore. Its general function, as articulated in the Constitution, is "to consider and report on such matters affecting persons of any racial or religious community in Singapore as may be referred to the Council by Parliament or the Government". To fulfil its role as a safeguard against any parliamentary or executive propensity to majoritarian or sectarian politics, it may constrict the Government's freedom to discriminate against racial and religious communities by obstructing the passage of new laws and regulations that it deems to contain such "differentiating measures".
As a legislative review mechanism, it plays a "limited quasi Second Chamber" role. It has also been called "the closest body to a Second Chamber for many years". However, the Council has been criticized for lacking teeth to act as a real check on potential legislative abuses. As of 2009, the PCMR had not issued an adverse report regarding any piece of legislation referred to it. Nevertheless, it forms part of the statutory framework for the People's Action Party government's internationally-lauded efforts in managing minority issues in multiethnic Singapore. Former Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar, formerly a member of the Council, has noted that the PCMR is also a symbol of the paramount importance placed on racial harmony in a world still rife with racial and communal conflict.
Read more about this topic: Presidential Council For Minority Rights
Famous quotes containing the words presidential, council, minority and/or rights:
“The Republican Vice Presidential Candidate ... asks you to place him a heartbeat from the Presidency.”
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)
“Daughter to that good Earl, once President
Of England’s Council and her Treasury,
Who lived in both, unstain’d with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content.
Till the sad breaking of that Parliament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty,
Kill’d with report that old man eloquent;—”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“For those parents from lower-class and minority communities ... [who] have had minimal experience in negotiating dominant, external institutions or have had negative and hostile contact with social service agencies, their initial approaches to the school are often overwhelming and difficult. Not only does the school feel like an alien environment with incomprehensible norms and structures, but the families often do not feel entitled to make demands or force disagreements.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“It is difficult for me to imagine the same dedication to women’s rights on the part of the kind of man who lives in partnership with someone he likes and respects, and the kind of man who considers breast-augmentation surgery self-improvement.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)