Cabinet yet to decide on bill to amend Fed Constitution on Sabah, Sarawak status

Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin's cabinet has yet to decide on a plan to amend Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution, which is aimed at restoring Sabah and Sarawak's status as equal partners with Malaya.

This was according to a parliamentary reply by deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department Hanifah Hajar Taib (above) on Thursday.

"At this juncture, the cabinet has not made any decision in regards to the proposal on the amendment of Article 1(2) of the Federal Constitution," she said.

Hanifah's written reply came in response to Batu Sapi MP Liew Vui Keong's question of whether the government would retable a fresh bill on the proposal in Parliament.

An initial version of the bill was first tabled in the Dewan Rakyat in April last year but was defeated.

The bill was intended to restore the status of the two Borneo states as equal partners with Malaya in the Malaysian Federation by restoring Article 1(2) to its original form as in 1963.

The government, then under Pakatan Harapan, was just 10 votes shy of the two-thirds requirement to pass the constitutional amendment bill.

Following this, Liew, who was the de facto Law Minister then, had said last Dec that a fresh bill would be tabled in March 2020.

However, the Harapan government fell earlier this year in a February political coup dubbed the Sheraton Move, which saw Perikatan Nasional coming into power. The Dewan Rakyat sitting scheduled to take place in March had also been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the reply by Hanifah also mentioned that the government aims to finish the review on the execution of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) in three phases.

She said that they expect to get the review on short-term execution done within a year, medium-term (between one and two years), and long-term (over three years). - Mkini