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Keruah Usit
| Feb 24,
The
Kuching High Court has thrown out a stay application by the
Justice Linton Albert panned the
legal arguments of the companies - Lembaga Tabung Haji, Ladang
Sawit Bintulu and Semai Mekar - as “bigoted” and “ill-conceived” as he dismissed
the application yesterday with
costs.
Last month,
High Court judge David Wong had caused a stir by ordering the state government
and the three operators to immediately return 1,115ha of
The state government and its three partners then lodged an appeal and applied
for a stay of the judgment, pending review by the
The state government also remarkably plunged into controversy, by publicly
attacking the High Court ruling, and by arguing that Article 153 of the federal
constitution does not protect the land rights of Malay and Dayak natives in
The three operators had argued that a stay of judgment was needed on the
grounds that the Iban villagers might damage the oil palm estate and
properties, including a surau. The companies claimed
that damage of the surau might lead to social and
religious unrest.
Land rights lawyers
See later told Malaysiakini
that the companies’ arguments had cast a slur on the Iban.
Linton took exception to this as well, vilifying the argument as “most
regrettably, an ill-conceived religious slant”.
According to his written judgment, this claim “must be deprecated in no
uncertain terms because religious and social unrest have never happened in the
state of
“The greatest disservice anyone can do is to parrot the propensity in other
shores to perceive every irritant or inconvenience, real or imagined, as a
threat to the survival of race and religion,” said the judge.
“This is something we can do without. The bigoted attempt to raise sympathy
evoking (religious) matters is futile and woefully misplaced.”
State argument ‘reeks of arrogance’
The state government’s lawyer came under fire for
arguing that the stay of judgment is needed so that it can consider using its
“right to exercise its powers to extinguish the native customary rights of the
plaintiffs”.
Under the much-amended Sarawak Land Code 1958, the state government can remove
The plaintiffs’ lawyers responded angrily, saying the government’s ground for
seeking a stay of judgment “reeks of arrogance and bad faith”.
They said the argument used by the Superintendent of the Land and
Survey Department and the
According to the judge: “The fact that is relied on as a
ground indicates that the 4th and 5th 
defendants are not above invoking the statutory power to frustrate
the consequential order. It stands to reason, therefore, that on this
ground alone, the stay ought to be refused because the court should not act in
vain.”
Fatmawaty Morshidi of
Messrs Hamzah and Ong
Associates represented the three companies, while state legal counsel JC Fong
acted for the
News of the dismissal of the application for the stay of the Agi judgment, as well as recent reports of the huge victory for Amit Salleh and Malay, Kedayan and Melanau villages in Suai, also near Bintulu, have delighted many ordinary Sarawakians.
However, the
Iban villagers in the Agi lawsuit are unlikely to
hold their festive gawai
celebrations just yet. They still face a protracted legal campaign, beginning
with the appeal by the
KERUAH
