THE Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) has been told to look into the civil suit brought by 11 Sarawak folk against the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Parliament) Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said today.

Wan Junaidi added that the AGC would look “into the criminal side, if any”.

The suit, filed by pro-independence and state rights activists led by Dorus Katan Juman in Kuching High Court in November last year, sought to have MA63 declared invalid.

As such, the group also demanded that Sarawak be allowed to exit Malaysia on the grounds that the agreement has been broken.

The suit was filed against the governments of the UK, Malaysia and Sarawak.

Pro-independence politician and president of Parti Bumi Kenyalang (PBK) Voon Lee Shan, whose legal firm filed the suit, today said there was nothing in Malaysia’s law that prohibited anyone aggrieved with the formation of Malaysia “to sue any person they want”.

“There is nothing seditious or treasonous in suing these governments on matters relating to the formation of Malaysia,” he said in a statement today.

Voon said he had received many queries from members of the public about the suit.

He said they should not be distracted by claims that judges could be arrested for hearing any case against people in power or against the government.

This was in reference to the recent call by a certain group of people to arrest the trial judge in Najib Razak’s SRC International case, Muhammad Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.

Nazlan had found Najib guilty and sentenced the former prime minister to 12 years in prison.

Voon said judges are protected by law and if suits in connection with MA63 or the formation of Malaysia are filed, “rest assured, our court will not be cowed or intimidated into not hearing the suits because the court is bound under the law to dispense justice”.

“Once a suit is filed, it is up to the court to decide.”

On Wednesday, Voon told The Malaysian Insight that he filed the suit and he did it so the people of Sarawak and Sabah “know what had happened to us”.

He said the MA63 was void from the outset.

During the online case management on Tuesday, counsels for the Sarawak and federal governments, Khairul Kabir Abdul Kadir and Shamsul Bolhassan respectively, said they would file to have the suit dismissed.

The court gave them until April 15 to do so. – March 18, 2022.