No need to send legal team to London — state DAP

KUCHING: State Democratic Action Party (DAP) says Sarawak does not need to send a legal team to London to study the state’s rights under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).

Its Socialist Youth chairman Wong King Wei said any legal practitioner would know that they only had to interpret the intention of the parties within the four corners of an agreement in order to enforce one’s contractual rights deriving from the agreement.

“I can’t help but to admire the creativity of our Chief Minister by making the move — sending a team of lawyers led by an assistant minister to go all the way to London and conveniently brand this as ‘continuing Tok Nan’s (the late Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Adenan Satem) effort’,” said the Padungan assemblyman on his Facebook page last Saturday.

Wong, who is a lawyer by profession, wondered why Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg had kept quiet about several other issues if he is serious about continuing Adenan’s effort to retrieve Sarawak’s rights.

The DAP lawmaker asked why Abang Johari remained silent on the pig bristle brush issue and why the latter ‘suspended the negotiation’ for 20 per cent of oil and gas royalty.

He said Abang Johari had also been silent about religious teachers from Peninsular Malaysia being posted in Sarawak to teach.

He added that Abang Johari also sanctioned a ministerial motion to disqualify Dr Ting Tiong Choon as Pujut assemblyman during the last State Legislative Assembly sitting.

The disqualification took place on May 12 but Dr Ting was restored as the elected representative by the High Court here on June 17.

“If the late Tok Nan is still here, he will do it very much differently,” pointed out Wong.

He said the late Adenan ‘never played to (the) gallery by sending a legal delegation to London before he called (the) federal BN (Barisan Nasional) government stupid.”

On Saturday, Abang Johari announced in Sibu that Sarawak will send a team of lawyers to London to search for and study any references related to the state’s rights under MA63.

He said the team would be led by Law, State- Federal Relations and Project Monitoring Assistant Minister Sharifah Hasidah Sayeed Aman Ghazali.

However, he did not go into details on the research trip to London.