It is an undisputed that the decision of the Federal government to remove the high court registry from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu is unconstitutional as our CM was never consulted by the federal government pursuant to art. 121(4) of the Federal Constitution. The constitution is our supreme law and no one is above such supreme law. This is not a question of whether there’s any physical removal involved or whether it is alright to move such registry to Sabah or not. The crust of the issue is that the federal government has not complied with the requirements of the constitution to consult our CM and therefore such decision is unconstitutional and void, said SUPP Woman Chief, Kho Teck Wan.

Kho questioned what is the use of PH government’s recent rhetoric of wanting to amend the federal Constitution to restore Sarawak’s status as an equal partner to Malaya and Sabah, when the PH government has no intention to honour and uphold the constitution. Putrajaya also has no respect for Sarawak government by consulting us before issuing a notice on 19 April to relocate high court registry from Kuching to KK. By their actions, Sarawak was definitely not treated as an equal partner in any sense. Further, I see this relocation issue is an act of political revenge by the PH government against Sarawakians.

This incident, she said, is another classic example of the failure of our Sarawakian PH representatives in Putrajaya. We only have a federal minister, Baru Bian and Chong Chien Jen, a deputy minister in the PH cabinet. And yet none of them acted on Sarawak’s interests as our first barrier of defence in the Cabinet to ensure the federal government to stop making decisions affecting Sarawak without consulting Sarawak first. They even failed to account for this shocking event when it was unfolded a few days ago to the people in Sarawak. Over and over again, the PH Sarawakian representatives failed us.

 I believe there are more to come from the PH government against the wishes of Sarawak. I therefore urge my fellow Sarawakians not to put any hopes on PH Sarawak that they would come to our rescue. We can only depend on ourselves.

According to local legal practitioners, the implication of moving the high court registry from Kuching to Kota Kinabalu is the additional legal cost incurred to Sarawakians.