Voon Lee Shan
KUCHING (May 12): Lawyer Voon Lee Shan is appealing against the High Court decision to dismiss his originating summons to set aside the admission of former Chief Justice of Sabah and Sarawak Datuk Wong Dak Wah, a Sabahan, as an advocate in Sarawak.
Voon, who is Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) president, said this in a press statement entitled ‘A plea for financial help to protect rights in Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63)’ yesterday.
On Monday, the High Court dismissed Voon’s originating summons, saying it has no merits. The court then awarded the respondent, Wong, RM5,000 being costs to be paid by Voon.
However, not only Voon is now appealing against the decision, he is also appealing for public donations to fund the litigating costs and token fee of his lawyers.
Voon also said that he has two more similar cases pending at the Court of Appeal and another RM25,000 in legal costs after losing the cases at the High Court.
Wong was represented by counsels Chong Siew Chiang and Tan Kee Heng.
“I shall be in deeper trouble if I may not win my appeal before the Court of Appeal or before Federal Court. Justice is difficult for poor fellows and I do not have the financial means to fight the giants, if (the) public would not rescue me.
“There are a few lawyers working for me to fight this case and we shall not stop until we reach the highest court in the land. As cost of litigation is very high I am not able to absorb the costs. With that, I am pleading to Sarawakians to chip in to help me shoulder the litigation cost and token fee for the lawyers,” said Voon, adding that he is contactable at 014-9688319.
He said the donations could also be handed to party leaders, life president Yu Chin Liik, secretary general Priscilla Lau, treasurer general Jamie Tiew and South Zone political affairs director Raymond Thong.
Wong Dak Wah is from Sabah, who at one time was a High Court judge here. He was a Federal Court judge before he retired last year. He then applied to be admitted as an advocate to practise law in Sarawak and this was allowed by the Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak.
Voon however challenged the decision to admit Wong as advocate in Sarawak on the ground that Wong has to first establish his Sarawak connections under the Sarawak Advocates Ordinance.
“David Wong is from Sabah and I did not find anything to show he has Sarawak connections that prompted me to file the suit to seek the court strike him out of the Rolls of Advocates of Sarawak. I consider this as a public interest case and I aim to protect Sarawak rights, not a busy body.
“This case affects the livelihood of Sarawak lawyers and future generations of lawyers. Soon we may see lawyers from Malaya open law firms here and we are not able to compete with them. This case may also affect the livelihoods of Sarawak business people because Malayans will swamp in to Sarawak. Malayan lawyers can just walk into our court, a thing that is protected under MA63,” elaborated Voon.
“In past 58 years many Sarawak rights had been taken away or been diluted, giving Malaya dominance and created much inequality over our livelihood which affected our lives. If we allow a gate to be opened, it would make it easy to allow Malayans to open other gates to take our livelihood away.
“We have seen many of our rights been taken away in the past 58 years. Licensing of our businesses is also controlled by Malaya and this had made business difficult and prices of goods and services very expensive in Sarawak,” he stressed.
For the record, Voon also lost in his bids to set aside the admission to the Sarawak Bar, former Chief Justice of Malaysia Tan Sri Richard Malanjum for similar reasons.
Like Wong, Malanjum is a Sabahan.