Appeals court orders full hearing of SLS special grant challenge

The Court of Appeal says it was not persuaded by Putrajaya’s contention that issues relating to the special grant were non-justiciable.

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has granted the Sabah Law Society (SLS) leave to commence judicial review proceedings in its attempt to enforce the 40% special grant to which Sabah is entitled under the Federal Constitution.

Delivering the unanimous decision, Justice P Ravinthran said the court was not persuaded by the federal government’s contention that issues relating to the special grant are non-justiciable and that courts are precluded from hearing the case.

Also on the panel hearing the appeal were Justices Nazlan Ghazali and Choo Kah Sing.

Ravinthran said SLS, a statutory body set up to represent Sabah lawyers, was not seeking personal redress over the 40% special grant issue but was bringing the case in the form of public interest litigation for the benefit of all Sabahans.

“The issue that SLS is seeking to address has high constitutional importance, no less,” he added.

The court noted that the focus of SLS’s judicial review centred on the federal government’s alleged “omission” to review Sabah’s entitlement under the special grant between 1974 and 2021.

“A review done in 2022 purportedly does not account for the so-called ‘lost years’,” Ravinthran said.

SLS is seeking to quash a 2022 gazette stating that the federal government will make grant payments to Sabah totalling RM527.2 million covering the years 2022 to 2026.

It also wants to compel the federal government to hold another review under Article 112D of the Federal Constitution to properly “reflect” Sabah’s 40% revenue entitlement.

SLS argued that a review was carried out for the period of 1969 to 1973, but not since then. As a result, it said Sabahans had lost the benefit of the special grant for 47 years.

The federal government contended that the value of the grant should be determined by both federal and state administrations, taking into account fiscal and financial positions.

SLS was represented by David Fung and Jeyan TM Marimuttu, while senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan and Ahmad Hanir Hambaly appeared for the federal government.

Meanwhile Sabah attorney-general Nor Asiah Mohd Yusof and the state’s legal adviser to the chief minister, Brenndon Keith Soh, appeared for the state government, which was named as a co-respondent.

Asiah took over conduct of the case on behalf of the state government from law firm FT Ahmad & Co on May 24, following a furore over controversial remarks made during the hearing of the appeal a week earlier.

In his submissions, lawyer Tengku Ahmad Fuad, representing the state, had claimed that SLS did not have locus standi to bring the proceedings. He also claimed that Sabah’s right to 40% of its state revenue was merely “aspirational” and not mandatory or absolute.

Asiah retracted those submissions, saying they did not reflect the state’s position on the matters.