Senior federal counsel Ahmad Hanir Hambaly said the judicial review proceedings before Justice Ismail Brahim in the Kota Kinabalu High Court have been put on hold pending a ruling on the application by the apex court.

Meanwhile, at an online case management this afternoon, federal counsel Krishna Priya Venugopal told Ismail the federal AG had, two weeks ago, listed four leave questions which he says warrant a hearing of the appeal by the apex court.

Ismail then adjourned proceedings before him to Aug 30 and asked to be kept abreast of developments on the matter pending in the Federal Court.

There is no automatic right of appeal to the Federal Court.

To secure leave, an applicant must satisfy the apex court that the proposed appeal contains novel legal or constitutional questions of public importance which are being raised for the first time.

The federal AG is appealing a Court of Appeal decision which upheld a ruling handed down by Ismail on Nov 11, 2022 granting the Sabah Law Society (SLS) leave to commence judicial review proceedings.

Justice P Ravinthran, who presided over the appeal with Justices Nazlan Ghazali and Choo Kah Sing, said the appeals court was not persuaded by the federal AG’s contention that issues arising were non-justiciable and that court was precluded from hearing the case.

Ravinthran also said SLS, a statutory body set up to represent Sabah lawyers, had locus standi to bring the case for the benefit of all Sabahans.

The court noted that SLS’s judicial review centred on the federal government’s alleged omission to review Sabah’s entitlement under the special grant between 1974 and 2021, dubbed the “lost years”.

In its judicial review application, SLS is seeking to quash a 2022 gazette by which the federal government agreed to pay Sabah RM527.2 million, covering the years from 2022 to 2026.

It also wants to compel the federal government to hold another review under Article 112D of the Federal Constitution to properly reflect Sabah’s 40% net revenue entitlement.