27 January, Kota Kinabalu: The recent statement by Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said that the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) contains no provision on oil and gas ownership cannot be allowed to stand as a definitive legal conclusion.
MA63 was never meant to function as a checklist of individual resources. It was the foundational agreement under which Sabah agreed to form Malaysia, preserving a federal structure where land and natural resources remained within state jurisdiction, subject only to clearly expressed federal powers.
Under that constitutional scheme, mining and minerals are state matters. That legal starting point has never been displaced by implication, convenience, or political assertion.
To argue that silence in MA63 amounts to permanent surrender of Sabah’s resource rights is not constitutional interpretation — it is constitutional reductionism.
There are sound legal grounds to question whether later federal legislation, including the Petroleum Development Act 1974, lawfully altered that original federal balance as it applies to Sabah. If the matter were truly beyond dispute, Parliament would not have needed to legislate ownership through an ordinary Act, and Petronas would not now be seeking clarification from the Federal Court on the applicable regulatory framework in the Borneo states.
These are not academic doubts. They are active constitutional questions presently before the courts.
In this context, it is inappropriate for any minister — particularly the minister responsible for law and institutional reform — to use her office as a de facto authority to shut down legitimate constitutional debate on Borneo state rights. Courts, not political office, are the final arbiters of constitutional meaning.
This issue does not exist in isolation. Sabah continues to face unresolved constitutional questions over its 40% net revenue entitlement under the Federal Constitution. Taken together, these matters reflect a deeper pattern — not of constitutional uncertainty, but of constitutional avoidance when Sabah’s rights are involved.
This is not an attack on Petronas, nor a comparison between Sabah and Sarawak. It is about constitutional fidelity. Sabah entered Malaysia as a founding partner, not on the basis that its control over land and natural resources could later be extinguished by implication.
If Putrajaya is confident in its legal position, it should allow the courts to determine the issue openly and without political dismissal.
Sabah does not seek special treatment. Sabah insists on constitutional respect.
Lawyer Yong Yit Jee
Supreme Council Member cum Vice Youth Chief
Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP)