Voon Lee Shan
The Cobbold Commission Report was misleading and should not be used to draft the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) for the formation of the Federation of Malaysia.
This is because the inquiry conducted by the Commission interviewed only about 4,000 out of the 700,000 people in Sarawak to assess whether they wanted Sarawak to be included in the formation of Malaysia.
It revealed that only 1/3 agreed to the formation of Malaysia, 1/3 disagreed and the other 1/3 doubtful. The 4,000 people interviewed (less than 1 per cent of the population) could not represent the voice of the whole people of Sarawak at that time.
Therefore, MA63 should be declared null and void because it was based on a misleading report of the Cobbold Commission to the British government at that time.
The effect of any null and void agreement could not be used to form a binding contract be it an agreement like MA63.
Worse still, MA63 is an International Treaty which should be perfectly drafted and should not be based on misleading findings or information. My humble view is that Malaysia should not be formed based on a void MA63.
Now, the federal government wants to rectify the wrongs caused by the Cobbold Commission and is trying to convince the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak that MA63 is a valid Agreement.
The formation of Malaysia had not benefitted the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak and, being sovereign nations before Malaysia, both Sabah and Sarawak were then reduced in status to states only.
The sovereignty of these nations had been affected. The federal government wants to overcome the unhappiness of the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak by first amending Article 1(2) Federal Constitution by putting back the status of Sabah and Sarawak from states to their rightful status as nations of their own within the Federation.
The federal government argued that the erosion of rights of the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak as entrenched in MA63 could not be rectified unless the Constitution is amended.
My humble opinion is: What have we to rectify when the legality of the formation of Malaysia is questionable?
Even if MA63 had been legally passed or constructed, the several fundamental breaches of MA63 by the federal government had made Malaysia no more a sensible political union between Sabah and Sarawak with the Federation of Malaya.
Now, we are waiting in suspense how and when all flaws caused by MA63 could be rectified. The governments of Sabah and Sarawak should not be trapped by the call by the federal government through the Law Minister, YB Liew Vui Keong, a Sabahan, to go to the negotiation table to review and to rectify the loss or erosion of rights caused by the federal government as entrenched in MA63.
To put all things right that went wrong which began nearly 60 years ago may take 60 years or longer to undo. Our pride that Sabah and Sarawak are sovereign nations had been affected.
Since there is an admission of the erosion of the rights of the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak by the federal government, this perhaps could be a good ground to sue the federal government for loss caused till now.
My humble opinion is also that since MA63 should be flawed the UK government should be responsible for the loss incurred by the peoples of Sabah and Sarawak.
The Sarawak government is urged to sue UK and federal government for loss incurred by the peoples of Sarawak. Such a legal process is possible because if Hindraf could do it or file such suits in UK, there is no reason the Sarawak Government could not do it.
The writer is a lawyer and former Batu Lintang state assemblyman.