Spanish court rejects appeal to restore appointment of Sulu dispute arbitrator

 

Law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said the effect of the decision is that Gonzalo Stampa lacked the authority to act as arbitrator and deliver his arbitration award. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: A Spanish constitutional court has rejected an appeal by a group claiming to be heirs of the last sultan of Sulu in their ongoing dispute with the government over compensation for the cession of Sabah.

The heirs were seeking to challenge a lower court order which annulled the appointment of an arbitrator to preside over the dispute.

In a statement, law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said said Putrajaya had just received official confirmation of the constitutional court’s decision.

In February 2022, a French arbitration court had instructed the federal government to pay US$14.92 billion (RM62.59 billion) to the descendants of the last sultan of Sulu.

Arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa ruled that Malaysia had violated the 1878 agreements between the old Sulu kingdom in the Philippines and a representative of the British North Borneo Company that used to administer what is now Sabah.

Azalina said the effect of the constitutional court’s decision was that it confirmed the annulment of Stampa’s appointment.

“The Spanish constitutional court, therefore, reaffirms Malaysia’s position.

“This decision confirms the legal position that Malaysia has asserted since the dispute began, effectively ending the (heirs’) judicial strategy in Spain,” she said.

She said the annulment meant that Stampa lacked the authority to act as arbitrator and ought to have immediately ended the purported arbitration proceedings.

Instead, he chose to deliver an illegal “final award” granting the claimants US$14.92 billion in compensation for the territory of Sabah, she said.

The dispute has its origin in the 1878 Deed of Cession between the then sultan of Sulu, Jamal Al Alam, and Baron de Overbeck, the then maharaja of Sabah, and British North Borneo Company’s Alfred Dent.

Under the agreement, Jamal ceded sovereignty over large parts of Sabah to Overbeck and Dent, who agreed that they and their future heirs would pay the heirs of the sultan 5,000 Mexican dollars annually.

In 1936, the last formally-recognised sultan of Sulu, Jamalul Kiram II, died without heirs. Payments temporarily ceased until North Borneo High Court chief justice Charles F Macaskie named nine court-appointed heirs in 1939.

Although Malaysia took over these payments when it became the successor of the agreement following Sabah’s independence and the formation of Malaysia in 1963, the payments – equivalent to RM5,300 a year – ceased in 2013 after an incursion by armed men into Lahad Datu, along the eastern coast of Sabah. - FMT