{"id":20211,"date":"2017-12-01T17:30:26","date_gmt":"2017-12-01T09:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/?p=20211"},"modified":"2017-12-03T13:19:59","modified_gmt":"2017-12-03T05:19:59","slug":"datuk-sebastian-on-statement-that-all-states-equal-under-federalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/?p=20211","title":{"rendered":"Datuk Sebastian on statement that \u201cAll States Equal Under Federalism\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

1.\u00a0 SUPP is very disappointed and totally disagrees with the notion by\u00a0Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia that all States in Malaysia\u00a0are equal under the federalism.<\/p>\n

We agree fully agree and support the statement by our Chief Minister\u00a0Datuk Patinggi Datuk Amar Abang Zohari released on the 30th November\u00a02017.<\/p>\n

First of all, there were 5 signatories to the Malaysia Agreement 1963\u00a0that formed Malaysia. They were the United Kingdom, the Federation of\u00a0Malaya, Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore. Individual states in Peninsula\u00a0Malaya were\u00a0 never signatories to the formation of Malaysia. So\u00a0Perlis, Kelantan, Penang and other Malayan states did not sign the\u00a0Malaysia Agreement 1963 at all.\u00a0 Federated States of Malaya signed.<\/p>\n

SUPP had always been consistent and adamant that Sarawak is one of the\u00a0three founding partners to the formation of Malaysia and therefore\u00a0Sarawak can\u00a0 never equal to other states in Peninsular.<\/p>\n

Sarawak, Sabah, Federated States of Malaya and Singapore then\u00a0(separated in 1965) formed Malaysia .<\/p>\n

The important fact is that Sarawak and Sabah formed Malaysia, not\u00a0joined Malaysia.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Our late Chief Minister Pehin Sri Haji Adenan Satem had time and\u00a0again reminded us that there would not be any Malaysia today without\u00a0Sarawak. No person can deny the validity and legality of the Malaysia\u00a0Agreement 1963 along side with the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC)\u00a0Report 1962, the Cobbold Commission and the Malaysia Act (Chapter 35).<\/p>\n

Our Chief Minister YAB Datuk Patinggi Datuk Amar Abang Zohari had on\u00a0numerous occasions stressed the importance of MA 63 and had indeed\u00a0sent a strong legal team to United Kingdom to do a thorough research\u00a0on all relevant papers, documents, recorded minutes during the\u00a0countless discussions on the formation of Malaysia.<\/p>\n

This is the serious commitment of our Chief Minister and Sarawak\u00a0Governent in wanting to get the full facts and thus able to fight for\u00a0and safeguard the interests of Sarawak and people of Sarawak, during\u00a0discussions with the\u00a0 Federal Government.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 We must also remind ourselves that in the\u00a0 Malaysia Agreement 63\u00a0there are additional degrees of autonomy and special privileges which\u00a0the Peninsular states do not have.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 The degree of autonomy that we have but Peninsular states do not\u00a0have includes:<\/p>\n

a. the power over our State immigration;<\/p>\n

b. lawyers from Peninsular cannot freely practice laws in Sarawak\u00a0without applying for “ad hoc” admission<\/p>\n

c. the rights to use English language in our High Court and many more.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Even in the Federal Constitution, additional sources of revenue\u00a0and special grants are assigned only to Sarawak and Sabah and not to\u00a0the other states in Peninsular. Furthermore, there are many safeguards\u00a0put in place only for Sarawak and Sabah listed in the\u00a0Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report 1962 that covers issues such\u00a0as religion freedom, representation in the Federal Parliament,\u00a0financial provisions and education which are not expressed or\u00a0partially expressed by the provisions in the Federal Constitution but\u00a0must be implemented under Article VIII of the Malaysia Agreement.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 With all that, it is not accurate for the Dewan Rakyat speaker\u00a0Pandikar to say that Sarawak and Sabah are equal to all other states.\u00a0As a conclusion I would like\u00a0 to refer to the statement\u00a0 by the Chief\u00a0Justice of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Richard Malanjum\u00a0 published in\u00a0Sabah newspaper on the June 12 2017 entitled Documents on Sabah ‘s\u00a0rights vital.<\/p>\n

There he slammed the tendency of some people in high places for\u00a0reducing documents that spell out the rights of Sabah ( Sarawak added\u00a0by me) as nothing more than a historical paper to be kept in the\u00a0archives.<\/p>\n

He added obviously these people did not understand the importance of\u00a0the documents to the current\u00a0 and future generation of Sabahans.<\/p>\n

\"dato<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1.\u00a0 SUPP is very disappointed and totally disagrees with the notion by\u00a0Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia that all States in Malaysia\u00a0are equal under the federalism. We agree fully agree and support the statement by our Chief Minister\u00a0Datuk Patinggi Datuk Amar Abang Zohari released on the 30th November\u00a02017. First of all, there were 5 signatories to the Malaysia Agreement 1963\u00a0that formed Malaysia. They were the United Kingdom, the Federation of\u00a0Malaya, Sarawak, Sabah and Singapore. Individual states in Peninsula\u00a0Malaya were\u00a0 never signatories to the formation of Malaysia. So\u00a0Perlis, Kelantan, Penang andRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18999,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20213,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20211\/revisions\/20213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.suppnewsportal.com\/main\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}