The suit was brought by nine members of the Sabah state cabinet over Thomas’s actions regarding a claim by descendants of the Sulu sultanate which later resulted in an award of US14.9 billion (RM62.59 billion) against the government.
Justice Christopher Chin of the High Court in Kota Kinabalu granted ad hoc admission to lawyer Alan Gomez, a partner in Thomas’s former firm, which bears his name. Thomas is listed as a consultant to the firm and it is understood he no longer has an interest in the firm.
“The judge allowed Gomez’s admission despite strenuous objections from the Sabah Attorney-General and the Sabah Law Society,” said Sabah-based lawyer Raymond Szetu, whose firm had been appointed by Thomas to handle the brief.
Lawyers from West Malaysia must obtain ad hoc admission to the High Court of Sabah and Sarawak to appear in cases there.
Szetu then filed an application in the Kota Kinabalu High Court to get Gomez admitted.
The suit was brought by two Sabah deputy chief ministers, Jeffrey Kitingan and Joachim Gunsalam, state ministers Jahid Jahim and Ellron Angin, as well as state assistant ministers Joniston Bangkuai, Abidin Madingkir, Robert Tawfik, Julita Mojungki and Flovia Ng.
Thomas has filed an application to strike out the suit. A date to hear his application has yet to be fixed.
The suit was filed last August. The nine politicians seek want a declaration that Thomas committed misfeasance in public office while acting as the government’s legal adviser between June 2018 and February 2020.
They said Thomas failed to respond to a notice about the Sulu heirs’ intention to begin an arbitration process over their claim to compensation for ceding Sabah.
The notice was filed in November 2017 but Thomas allegedly failed to respond and later made a decision not to take part or intervene in the arbitration proceeding to challenge the jurisdiction of Gonzalo Stampa, the arbitrator appointed by the heirs.
In February last year, the arbitrator held the Malaysian government liable for US$14.92 billion (RM62.59 billion) in compensation to the Sulu heirs.
However, a Spanish constitutional court earlier this month upheld a lower court order which annulled Stampa’s appointment of arbitrator to preside over the dispute.
Malaysia had stopped payments to the heirs – equivalent to RM5,300 a year – in 2013 after an armed incursion into Lahad Datu, along the eastern coast of Sabah.