LAND MATTERS
forming a jurisprudence body governing NCR land matters, those adversely impacted by such decisions lash out against the inequity of the law, and demand that the laws in question be amended to suit their purposes. It is not difficult to see how corrosive to the general governance such a stance can be if allowed to take hold.
Such disputes, almost always, revolve around a hugely (and some will say, impossibly) expansive view of what constitutes NCR lands.
And, disputes inevitably arise only when development schemes are brought to areas of dispute, often after some capital investments have already been committed by unsuspecting investing parties.
It is not difficult to envisage how future potential investors, who are keen to open up large land holdings in the state, may hesitate rather than face the prospect of their investments being held up for interminable lengths of time by litigation over disputed lands.
Those in support of such native land litigants, invariably base their support on the mistaken premise that they are helping to protect and defend the rights of the litigants over their lands. They need to be widely and vigorously disabused of such pretensions.
Any extravagantly expansive interpretations of NCR lands — and disputes arising thereof — have now been shown to be, in the main, illegal. Those loudly and angrily protesting court decisions not in their favour, need to be called out for who they are: threats to overall peace and order.
Politicians must know that their first responsibility is to the general peace of the state and country. They cannot be seen to give succour or sustenance to anyone who refuses to accept legal interpretations after disputing parties willingly agree to submit to years of legal wrangling and processes.
In the final analysis, such disputes and the attendant political posturing do not serve the interests of anybody in Sarawak, least of all the natives. There is a long-standing lament that Sarawak’s natives are land-rich, but financially poor. It may continue to stay that way if the lands they rightly and legally own are hopelessly entangled in limbo with disputes over adjoining parcels.
Only if, and when, NCR lands are systematically brought into the ambit of the law will their owners be in any position to enjoy the fruits of their commercial development.