He noted that there had been no such scrutiny by countries which were signatories to the UN declaration, including Malaysia, on how effective or productive Undrip was.
“There should be a proper audit carried out to see whether nations have been respecting the UN declaration… otherwise it will only be a declaration and of no benefit whatsoever to real indigenous people.
“For instance, in Malaysia, we are still using the word ‘native’.
“Native is okay but let’s be honest about it, when you mention ‘native’, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? People walking around in cawat (loin cloth), right? Or people who the next minute will cut your head off,” he said when delivering his welcoming address at the Borneo Rainforest Law Conference 2019 here today.
Malanjum said the perception was created by the media and Western powers in the early days.
“So I’m hoping that the government will adopt the term ‘indigenous’ instead of ‘native’.
“Unfortunately for Sabah, it is still ‘native’ and there are lots of negative connotations to that word,” he said, adding that a working paper would be produced at the end of the conference and presented to the government.
He urged the Sabah Law Society, the Council of Justices of Peace Sabah and the Pusat Sumber Adat dan Mediasi Kaum Anak Negeri Sabah to consistently lobby for this, saying there was not enough support for the idea.
“I notice that unless there is an external push, the authorities normally don’t move – I don’t know why. Hopefully the pushing will continue and not for the sake of publicity… hopefully it will succeed at the end of the day.”
Sabah Assistant Law and Native Affairs Minister Jannie Lasimbang agreed that progress on the implementation of Undrip in Malaysia had been slow.
“It’s true that the declaration has never been audited and we need to be able to do that. But I’m happy that this year, the state government has looked at understanding (the declaration) and we’ve had workshops.
“And in the training we had for the village chiefs, we started bringing in aspects of Undrip,” she said.
Lasimbang said Malaysia was initially was unsure how to implement the declaration, which she attributed to a lack of clear guidelines.
“Later in 2014, another document came from the world conference on indigenous people. And this was more of a document pushing the state to implement the declaration.
“So we have several documents already and I think Malaysia has started. Particularly for Sabah, I’m happy to say the implementation is already there.”
For example, she said, the state government now recognised the international day of the indigenous people and had started training sessions to make people understand about access to justice through the Native Court.
“But many more like land and health issues need to be recognised. Actually I’m hoping for a visit of the special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people from the UN,” she said, adding that the foreign ministry had yet to give the green light for the visit, planned for March.
Meanwhile, Malanjum said indigenous people in Sabah were losing out because of flaws in the current native law system.
“For example, there are people appointed to preside over native cases who may not understand the law.
“And in the villages, when they dispute over something, they will go to court and one will win and the other will lose. The system now is a bit adversarial – we want to avoid that as much as possible.
“We want a situation where they can be reconciled. That is why we encourage mediation because it results in a win-win situation,” he said.
Malanjum said they also had to conduct fresh training for the new batches of indigenous chiefs to ensure they had a firm grasp of native laws.
He also suggested that law schools give more emphasis on indigenous laws, adding that countries such as New Zealand gave prominence to such studies.
“But hardly any subject on indigenous laws is taught in law faculties. It’s an optional subject, I think,” he said, adding that Universiti Malaysia Sabah could take up this idea.