Lawyer Lim Heng Choo said this would be in line with the Malaysia Agreement of 1963 (MA63) and help streamline the court administrations in the two states because each would then have its own registry, high court and chief judge.
He was commenting on Sabah and Sarawak Chief Judge David Wong Dak Wah’s remark yesterday that any decision on high court registries would have to be based on the Federal Constitution and any change to the status quo would have to come from politicians.
Putrajaya recently decided to base the Sabah and Sarawak High Court registry alternately in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu in a rotation system.
Lim noted that Sabah and Sarawak, unlike the states in Peninsular Malaysia, each has its own advocates ordinance, which means Sarawakian lawyers cannot practise in Sabah and vice versa.
He said this strengthened the case for separate registries, high courts and judges.
Lim was expanding on a proposal made by SUPP secretary-general Milton Foo for the setting up of a high court in Sarawak with its own registry.
Speaking to FMT, Foo said: “If we can maintain separate legal professions in the three Malaysian territories, why can’t we do the same for our judicial system?
“In having a combined High Court of Sabah and Sarawak, it seems to me that there is no difference from the time when both states were British colonies. It seems we’ve now been colonised by Malaya.”
Another lawyer, Dominique Ng, claimed that many Sarawakians had expressed the fear that old and important documents might be misplaced in the process of relocating the registry to Kota Kinabalu.
“Those old files and legal documents kept in the registry belong to Sarawakians, dating back to Rajah Brooke’s days,” he said.
“They would be invaluable to Sarawakians but have no value or significance to Sabahans.”
Ng also accused the federal government of riding roughshod over Sarawakians’ genuine concerns and said this did not augur well for the fate of MA63.
He said the relocation would breach MA63 in spirit. “Any decision which adversely impacts any party to MA63 is supposed to be agreed by that party,” he added, citing Article 161E of the Federal Constitution, which is covered in MA63.