Liew says re-tabling of amend­ment to Ar­ti­cle 1(2) of the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion re­opens door for Sarawak, Sabah to re­gain rights

Liew says re-tabling of amend­ment to Ar­ti­cle 1(2) of the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion re­opens door for Sarawak, Sabah to re­gain rights

• 18 Dec 2019

KUCHING: Sarawak and Sabah will have a sec­ond chance at hav­ing their sta­tus as equal part­ners with Penin­su­lar Malaysia re­stored dur­ing the Par­lia­ment si ing early next year.

         Min­is­ter in the Prime Min­is­ter’s De­part­ment Datuk Liew Vui Keong an­nounced yes­ter­day that the pro­posed amend­ment to Ar­ti­cle 1(2) of the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion would be re-tabled in the De­wan Rakyat in March, a Ber­nama re­port said.

The de-facto law min­is­ter said this was agreed be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Tun Dr Ma­hathir Mo­hamad, Sabah Chief Min­is­ter Datuk Seri Mohd Shafie Ap­dal and Sarawak Chief Min­is­ter Datuk Pat­inggi Abang Jo­hari Tun Openg dur­ing a meet­ing at the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice on Tues­day.
      “I call on all mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to give bi­par­ti­san sup­port to the amend­ment as it is im­por­tant with re­gard to the po­si­tion of Sabah and Sarawak in the Fed­er­a­tion, and the ma er is close to the heart of ev­ery Saba­han and Sarawakian,” Liew said.
         Liew pointed out that the main agenda of the meet­ing on Tues­day was the Malaysia Agree­ment 1963 (MA63) and that it had helped in reach­ing a con­sen­sus on the re­main­ing four of 21 main is­sues iden­ti­fied by the Spe­cial Cab­i­net Commi ee to Re­view the im­ple­men­ta­tion MA63.        

         The pro­posed amend­ment to Ar­ti­cle 1(2) of the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion was tabled at the De­wan Rakyat in April this year by Dr Ma­hathir.
         It sought to re­store the sta­tus of Sabah and Sarawak as equal part­ners with Penin­su­lar Malaysia, but the con­tent and word­ing of the amend­ment bill were dis­puted in Par­lia­ment.
         It then failed to se­cure the re­quired num­ber of votes to be passed in Par­lia­ment as
         Gabun­gan Parti Sarawak (GPS), Barisan Na­sional (BN) and Parti Is­lam SeMalaysia (PAS) MPs had ab­stained from vot­ing.
         GPS was slammed by Pakatan Hara­pan (PH) lead­ers for sup­pos­edly fail­ing the peo­ple of Sarawak a er the pro­posed amend­ment was dropped.        

         Liew him­self had re­port­edly claimed that Sabah and Sarawak had lost a ‘ golden op­por­tu­nity’ to re­gain their po­si­tion as equal part­ners in Malaysia.

         How­ever, Abang Jo­hari would ex­plain later that the Cab­i­net Commitee meet­ing on the MA63 never dis­cussed the ac­tual con­tents and word­ings of the amend­ment with the state gov­ern­ment.
         He added that any de­ci­sion made on such an im­por­tant matter would re­quire him to ob­tain the man­date of the Con­sul­ta­tive Commitee es­tab­lished by the Sarawak State Leg­isla­tive As­sem­bly.
         Abang Jo­hari stressed that any amend­ment to the fed­eral con­sti­tu­tion or any law that sought to re­store the rights of Sarawak as in­tended by the par­ties to the Malaysia Agree­ment must be sub­stan­tive in na­ture and not merely in form.

        He had felt that the pro­posed amend­ment on Ar­ti­cle 1 (2) alone did not fully ad­dress the as­pi­ra­tion of the peo­ple of Sarawak and a ref­er­ence to MA63 should also be made via an amend­ment to the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion.

        I call on all mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to give bi­par­ti­san sup­port to the amend­ment as it is im­por­tant with re­gard to the po­si­tion of Sabah and Sarawak in the Fed­er­a­tion.

Datuk Liew Vui Keong

The Borneo Post

18 Dec 2019

My comments:

        MA63 is a fraud from the very beginning.  It is said that 600 amendments have been done on it.  It has been so mutilated beyond recognition to talk about amendments.  It is ridiculous to talk about amendment on the mutilated MA63 with the Malaya government.  Abang Johari and Shafie Apdal should stop making fools of themselves.   Sarawakians and Sabahans are really angry over their folly behaviours.  To settle MA63, they should bring it to the International Court of Justice, not among the three in the secret talk. These two idiots are only concerned about their self-interests.   Only traitors are eager for amendments with Mahathir.  Only traitors think that amend one article to correct all the 600 amendments done on MA63.