KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Law Society (SLS) has obtained leave for a judicial review against the federal government's constitutional duty to pay the 40 per cent special grant due to Sabah under the Federal Constitution.
SLS president, Roger Chin, said the Kota Kinabalu High Court granted the SLS' application on grounds that it had locus standi to apply for judicial review as this was a public interest litigation.
According to Chin, judge Datuk Ismail Brahim also said SLS's case was for the breach of the constitutional duty to pay the 40 per cent entitlement for the "lost years" between 1974 to 2021, which was justiciable.
"Second, the 2022 review order is justiciable as we are not challenging the content.
"The court has the power to interpret the Federal Constitution to determine if there is a breach of the constitutional duty to pay the 40 per cent entitlement.
"The application is for a public remedy to address any breach. We have presented an arguable case. The High Court has set Dec 16 to give further directions for the hearing of the substance of the judicial review," Chin said in a statement today.
In June this year, SLS filed a leave application following an announcement from the federal and state governments on April 14, 2022, of a special five-year annual grant for RM125.6 million for Sabah from this year.
The Sabah government, which earlier applied to be joined as the second respondent in the suit, supported the SLS's judicial review application.
The Sabah government's counsel, Datuk Tengku Ahmad Fuad Tengku Ahmad Burhanuddin, said the Sabah government had applied to be involved in the judicial review in order that the state government's interests could be presented and argued before the court.
"The issue is not whether the 2022 Special Grant Order is unlawful. This judicial review seeks redress (compensation) for the federal government's failure to conduct a review of Sabah's 40 per cent Special Grant which is a breach of Articles 112C and 112D of the Federal Constitution.
"This is a very important case for Sabah. The Federal Government must honour its revenue sharing obligations to Sabah under the Federal Constitution and be transparent about how much revenue it takes from the state each year.
"This judicial review will make clear that the federal government is answerable under law if it acts in breach of its Constitutional obligations to Sabah," said Tengku Fuad.
The federal Attorney General's Chambers, which was represented by Susanna Attan, argued that matters concerning the Sabah Special Grant were non-justiciable and could not be brought to court in the event of a dispute.
In its suit, the SLS alleges that it is a breach of the Federal Constitution for the federal government to have failed to conduct a review every five years starting in 1974; and that the federal government was obliged to pay to Sabah 40 per cent of Federal revenues derived from the State in each of the intervening years since 1974.