KOTA KINABALU: Sarawak Senator Robert Lau (
pic) said on Wednesday that the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), as an international agreement incorporated into the Federal Constitution, cannot be equated with the Petroleum Development Act 1974 (PDA 1974), which he said is subordinate to both the Constitution and MA63.
He said, in a statement posted on Facebook, that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, in replying to a Sarawak MP on January 26, had made an erroneous assertion by attempting to equate MA63 with the PDA, enacted 11 years later.
Advertisement
Lau said the question raised concerned land jurisdiction, specifically the boundaries of Sarawak at the time of Malaysia’s formation as defined under the Queen’s Order in Council 1954 and the validity of the Territorial Seas Act 2012, rather than whether MA63 expressly provided for ownership of natural resources.
He said the Federal Constitution places land and mining leases, including petroleum found on land, under state jurisdiction, with Articles 47 and 48 of the Sarawak Constitution vesting all land and minerals previously held by the British Crown in the State of Sarawak.
Lau said any powers conferred on Petronas under the PDA 1974 remain subject to the laws of the territory in which it operates, adding that federal legislation cannot override state laws in matters within state jurisdiction.
He said that with Petronas having brought the matter before the Federal Court against both the Federal Government and the Sarawak Government, ministers should exercise care and precision when making statements in Parliament and defend the Constitution and MA63.
In a separate statement on Tuesday, nominated assemblyman and former Sabah Law Society (SLS) president Datuk Roger Chin said claims that MA63 has “nothing to say” about oil and gas ignore its constitutional role in defining the division of sovereignty, legislative power and economic control in the Federation.
Roger said land and natural resources are state matters under the Constitution, that oil and gas exist beneath land which has never been federal property, and that post-1963 federal legislation cannot override constitutional structure or founding terms.
