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Former rep doubts if Malaysia properly constituted

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Voon Lee Shan

KUCHING: Former state assemblyman for Batu Lintang, Voon Lee Shan, questions whether Malaysia was properly constituted.

In a statement made available to the press today, Voon said that many legal minds doubted Malaysia was properly constituted.

“Among the reasons for this is that the Cobbold Commission Report, which formed the basis for the Malaysia Agreement 1963, (MA63), was considered misleading or a fraud,” Voon said.

The Malaysia Agreement was a treaty and it was opined that Sabah and Sarawak, being countries colonised by Britain, could not at that material time, under international law, sign a treaty, he said.

Voon Lee Shan

Voon spoke of a decision by the International Court of Justice, which, in the Chagos Islands case brought by Mauritius against United Kingdom, decided that colonies could not sign treaties.

“This decision was stated in paragraph 172 of the decision of the International Court of Justice.

“The Chagos Islands case is like the situation faced by Sabah and Sarawak now.”

Voon insisted that at the time MA63 was signed, Sabah and Sarawak were still colonies of Britain and they were given away by Britain to enlarge the territories of the Federation of Malaya.

“However, the state government had considered that since Malaysia was formed pursuant to the treaty called the Malaysia Agreement 1963, the state government insisted on the insertion of ‘Pursuant to the Malaysia Agreement 1963’, into the re-amended Article 1 (2) of the federal constitution but this was refused by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government.

The reason given by the Attorney General Chambers, according to the de facto Law Minister Liew Vui Keong, was that the inclusion would give rise to “complications”.

What these complications were had not been explained to the public, Voon said, adding the PH government has a duty to inform the Malaysian public what these complications are and how these could arise.

“Without these words Sabah and Sarawak cannot become part of the Federation of Malaysia,” Voon argued.

“Under what legal instruments were Sabah and Sarawak absorbed or taken by the Federation of Malaya? Was there a fraud involved which caused the disclosure impossible?” Voon asked.

The general perception is that Sabah and Sarawak are colonies of the Federation of Malaya which took a new name, the Federation of Malaysia, when Sabah and Sarawak were federated with Malaya on Sept 16, 1963.

This was what the people of Sabah and Sarawak were against before Malaysia was born.

Malaya cannot pluck Sabah and Sarawak from the sky; therefore, it was right that the re-amended Article 1 (2) should make mention of MA63.

If the treaty has no constitutional backing, the serious implication is that Sabah and Sarawak were illegally incorporated into the Malayan Federation.

Without any mandate and without the treaty, Malaysia could not be said to have been properly constituted, Voon stressed.

He said that with Singapore having exited without the knowledge and or consent of Sabah and Sarawak in 1965, should not the Federation of Malaysia have collapsed?

“Perhaps, it was for this reason that these six words as asked for by the state government were rejected by the PH government,” he said.

“Perhaps, the federal government, which is controlled by Malaya, wants us to forget the existence of MA63.

“Or maybe, the federal government also does not want Sabahans and Sarawakians to know the legality or legal and political implications of the treaty.

“One thing that should be on the minds of Sabahans and Sarawakians is that if Malaysia had not been properly constituted in accordance with international law, it is likely that no amendment to the federal constitution can put things right.”

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