PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO FEDERAL CONSTITUTION
THE draft of a proposed comprehensive amendment to the Federal Constitution has been submitted to the Attorney General’s Chambers of Malaysia for further action.
Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s Department (Law, State-Federal Relationship and Project Monitoring) Datuk Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali pointed out in the previous DUN sitting, assemblymen unanimously agreed to propose comprehensive amendments to the Federal Constitution.
“Following that, the proposed amendments were submitted during the Special Cabinet Committee meeting to review the implementation of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63),” she said in response to a question from Datuk Dr Juanda Jaya (PBB-Jemoreng) during the DUN sitting on Wednesday (Nov 11).
“It is our hope that these amendments can be tabled and approved in the Dewan Rakyat. This is not going to be easy but we are hopeful that one day, these comprehensive amendments will be tabled in Parliament,” she said.
She said the state government under the leadership of Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) would continue to fight for the rights of Sarawak.
At the federal level, she said an MA63 Special Cabinet Committee had been established to monitor the implementation of decisions achieved by the committee before this.
“Aside from that, the Sabah and Sarawak Affairs Division under the Prime Minister’s Department has also been appointed as secretariat to monitor the implementation of policy decisions of the Special Cabinet Committee,” she said.
Aside from several matters which the state government had raised to the MA63 Special Cabinet Committee, Sharifah said the state government had also established four non-negotiable matters.
She said the first was Sarawak’s immigration autonomy and the second was the state’s rights to enforce state laws in accordance with the Federal Constitution — including the Oil Mining Ordinance (OMO) 1958, State Sales Tax (SST), and Sarawak Land Code (SLC).
“The third non-negotiable matter is the protection of our state’s borders as defined in our SLC up until the continental shelf, and the fourth is sovereignty over the seabed, underground and resources within the borders of our state,” she said.
She stressed that these four matters were very important and non-negotiable as these were Sarawak’s rights.
