KUCHING: Sarawak lawyers from both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide rally to pro­tect Sarawak’s rights in the oil and gas in­dus­try.

       Yes­ter­day, nearly 50 lawyers from across the state, some of whom have dif­fer­ent po­lit­i­cal affi li­a­tions and ide­olo­gies, had a meet­ing with Chief Min­is­ter Datuk Pat­inggi Abang Jo­hari Tun Openg to give in­put and ideas per­tain­ing to the Petroleum Devel­op­ment Act ( PDA) 1974.
       The meet­ing was held fol­low­ing Petronas’ ac­tion to seek le­gal re­dress in the Fed­eral Court, to its oil and gas rights in the state.

       Present at the meet­ing were Assistant Min­is­ter of Law, StateFed­eral Re­la­tions and Project Mon­i­tor­ing Shar­i­fah Hasi­dah Say­eed Aman Ghazal i and mem­bers of Ad­vo­cates As­so­ci­a­tion of Sarawak ( AAS) led by the pres­i­dent Ran­bir Singh Singha, Sarawak PKR vice chair­man and lawyer See Chee How and lawyer Robert Lau.
    “The lawyers are do­ing it for

The lawyers are do­ing it for free …we are go­ing all the way for Sarawak, tooth and nail, not even an inch we will sur­ren­der. Shar­i­fah Hasi­dah Say­eed Aman Ghaz­ali, Assistant Min­is­ter of Law, State-Fed­eral Re­la­tions and Project Mon­i­tor­ing

free …we are go­ing all the way for Sarawak, tooth and nail, not even an inch we will sur­ren­der. Ev­ery­one is united in sup­port of the Chief Min­is­ter on this suit. It is a good thing for Sarawak.
     “As far as the AAS is con­cerned, they are with us and giv­ing their full sup­port. This has noth­ing to do with po­lit­i­cal align­ment or po­lit­i­cal stand, this is for Sarawak ,” said Sh ar if ah Hasi­dah.

       She pointed out that Sarawak govern­ment was still wait­ing for the cause pa­pers of the rel­e­vant suit, and will deal with the is­sues as they come and in com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Sarawak At­tor­ney- Gen­eral, who would also lead Sarawak’s le­gal team.
Shar­i­fah Hasi­dah also pointed out that a spe­cial task­force would be formed to as­sist Sarawak govern­ment in look­ing into all mat­ters re­lat­ing to the Malaysia Agree­ment 1963 ( MA63) and Sarawak’s rights, to which Abang Jo­hari had con­sented.
      “Abang Jo­hari is open and wel­comes all the sup­port from the peo­ple and any­one who can give their views and le­gal opin­ions. We want the best le­gal brains to help us in this fight for Sarawak,” she stressed, adding that the meet­ing was good with the solid sup­port from lo­cal lawyers.

       Ran­bir Singh as­sured that AAS would give full sup­port in the fight for Sarawak’s rights un­der the MA63.
       “We will as­sist in any way we can when it comes to pro­tect­ing Sarawak’s rights un­der the MA63,” he pointed out.
       Tourism, Arts, Cul­ture, Youth and Sports Min­is­ter Datuk Ab­dul Karim Rah­man Hamzah, who is also a lawyer by train­ing, was glad to note the strong sup­port from the lo­cal lawyers in fight­ing for Sarawak’s rights.

    “The beauty of all this is all Sarawakian lawyers are with us ( Sarawak govern­ment) and con­cerned about our rights,” he said, adding that lo­cal lawyers will have a sep­a­rate meet­ing to dis­cuss on the next course of ac­tion.

       To lawyer Do­minique Ng, the court fil­ing by Petronas was a chal­lenge to Sarawak which must be taken to a “dif­fer­ent level”.
“If they( Petronas) want to fight us to take our rights, then we must fight them on MA63…we formed Malaysia for a mean­ing­ful pur­pose.   We came to­gether be­cause we have a com­mon goal.
  “And now Petronas said they want to own our re­sources. Since when did Petronas be­come the govern­ment of Malaysia?   And if we should fight them, we must go all out and be on the offensive,” Ng, who is for­mer Padun­gan as­sem­bly­man, said.
       Ng also said Prime Min­is­ter Tun Dr Ma­hathir Mo­hamad could have just told Petronas not to re­sort to fil­ing the le­gal suit.

The Borneo Post

My comments:

We should condemn and reject any form of monopoly which is born to the evil-minded ones who want to dominate and wield power over others.