PETALING JAYA: Law and institutional reform minister Azalina Othman Said has challenged the self-proclaimed heirs of the late sultan of Sulu to take their claim of sovereignty over Sabah to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) if they have proof.
Azalina said the matter was not a commercial issue but one of sovereignty.
“Why are you (Sulu claimants) not going to the ICJ? If you are questioning a territorial matter it would not be on a commercial arbitration platform,” she said at the International Arbitration Colloquium 2023 in Kuala Lumpur today.
“Challenge us in the ICJ if you claim that you have entitlement, proof, mapping and documents. Challenge us that way and we will fight you until the end.”
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Putrajaya will continue to do what must be done to defend Malaysia’s sovereignty no matter the cost in pursuing legal action, she added.
Annual payments of RM5,300 to the descendants of the Sulu sultan were discontinued by Malaysia after an armed group landed in Lahad Datu in 2013 to pursue a claim of sovereignty over Sabah.
A legal firm in London, representing a group of nine people based in the Philippines, had filed a series of legal suits against the government following a US$15 billion arbitration claim it obtained against Malaysia.
In February 2022, a French arbitration court instructed Putrajaya 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.
Malaysia then challenged the arbitration order in France and Spain. A French court granted a stay order on the award, pending a decision on Malaysia’s claim that the order infringed its sovereignty over Sabah.
A Spanish court earlier this year annulled the appointment of the arbitrator who had granted the US$15 billion award.
In the latest action, the Sulu descendants attempted to seize three properties in Paris owned by the Malaysian government.
No end to Sulu descendants’ claim
Azalina said there would be no end to the Sulu sultan’s descendants’ claims so long as there was “a sun and moon”
She said Malaysia should look into implementing a State Immunity Act, much like the act in Singapore, as part of a strategy to prepare the country in the event there are future claims similar to that of the Sulu heirs.
State immunity prohibits the courts of one state from adjudicating on the domestic acts of another state as well as prohibiting the courts of one state from asserting jurisdiction or permitting enforcement against another sovereign state or its property.
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