The Penampang MP was commenting on a statement by state Special Tasks Minister and chairman of the Committee for Sabah’s Rights, Teo Chee Kang, who said there was no need for the state assembly to pass a motion when activating Article 8.
Article 8 states that Sabah and Sarawak can take their own measures to enforce and implement MA63 without having to amend the Federal Constitution.
“Teo was trying to put everything within the context of executive power with the hope that Sabahans will continue to support BN and this is the very reason why Sabah is unable to assert itself as a signatory to MA63,” Leiking said in a statement today.
On the contrary, he said the Sarawak state assembly has passed and approved a motion on Dec 8, 2015 to mandate the Sarawak government to take all necessary measures under Article 8.
This, he said, made it not only an executive mandate but one which is collectively passed by the august house.
“Thus, I believe that Sabah, for a start, should do likewise by asserting itself as an equal partner that formed the Federation of Malaysia by passing a motion that would bind the legislature and its successors so that the Umno national leaders will finally understand what has been ignored all these years and what Sabahans really want,” Leiking said.
“Let us take the Sarawak government as an example.
“The Sarawakians clearly anticipated that without getting the full legislative backing, all will come to nothing and the same will be repeated over and over again by successive governments in Sarawak”.
Sarawak Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg has even dismissed the committee which was set up last year by the federal government on devolution of authority as being powerless. It was led by Foreign Minister Anifah Aman and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri.
Johari also stated recently that Petronas needed the state’s mining licences to operate in Sarawak.
“With what the Sarawakians are doing and have done to date, will Teo also say that the Sarawak BN-led state government does not understand how a federation works?
“This is the core issue here, that it has to start from the legislature.
“I am not implying that Teo does not understand the workings of a federation but I advise him to be a true minister, like his counterpart in Sarawak, and just pass a motion at the state assembly by legitimising in full all of the terms and annexures of the MA63.”
Leiking said for Teo to argue that the state assembly cannot simply pass law to give effect to something that requires both hands to clap is erroneous, too.
For example, the state sales tax does not appear in Schedule 9 of the Federation of Malaysia’s constitution and yet the Sabah state assembly has the right to enact the state’s sales tax for the state government to collect sales tax as its lawful right.
“Both hands can clap whereby the state enforces and enacts the appropriate laws and the federal government honours the same. This way, Article 8 of the MA63 can be activated through the same mechanism,” he said.
Leiking pointed out that the landmark decision made by the Federal Court in respect of the Keruntum Sdn Bhd vs director of Forestry Sarawak and two others revealed that many of the rights available to the signatories of the MA63 were not enforceable.
According to the decision, the Federal Court ruled that “until and unless a recommendation by the 1962 Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report had been implemented by its incorporation in the Federal Constitution or through legislative, executive or action, taken under Article VIII of MA63, a litigant like Keruntum cannot enforce it through proceedings in the court because the court is not empowered by Article VIII of MA63 to implement any recommendation made by IGC”.
Leiking said the decision in the Keruntum matter contradicted what Teo had spoken of in November last year when he said there was no need to pass a resolution in the state legislative assembly, as done by Sarawak, because doing so would not add any strength to the legal basis of their claims, as their substantive rights were already clearly embedded in the Federal Constitution.
“If the courts are unable to dispense justice as a result of the non-activation of those rights stated in the IGC Report due to non-legislative action on Article 8 of MA63, then would it not make legal sense for all the elected state representatives to adopt a solid stand on this matter instead of relying on the executive channel to get it done?” he asked.
Towards this end, Leiking wondered why Sabah BN is reluctant to have such a motion passed in the state assembly because it will put Sabah in tandem with what Sarawak had done.
Doing so, he said, will then create a Borneo Bloc that will assert its rights over the Federation of Malaya, which was nothing more than a co-signatory of the MA63.
“It will also end the dominance of Malaya-based political leaders here in Sabah because whatever they want to plan in the future will have to be congruent with MA63,” he said.
Stop acting like you’re the opposition, Leiking tells state govt