THE opposition wants Senator Marzuki Yahya to retract his statement to Parliament or face the Rights and Privileges Committee for misleading parliamentarians, said Annuar Musa.

“We want him to retract his statement and have the statement expunged from the Hansard and issue a ministerial statement on the matter. 

“If he doesn’t do that, we will use Rule 36 (12), which is to be referred to the Rights and Privileges Committee for misleading the House,” the Ketereh MP told reporters in the lobby today.

Annuar said the deputy foreign minister had made a serious mistake last week when he told Dewan Rakyat that Malaysia plans to appeal the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision over Pulau Batu Puteh.

“As the ICJ decision was made in 2008, the appeal deadline was 2018. The previous government had filed an appeal with new facts within six months of the fact-finding, and the ICJ had set set July 2018 to hear the appeal. 

“But after the change of government, Pakatan withdrew the application to review the judgement in July. After the withdrawal, the deadline to file an appeal lapsed and the government cannot file any appeals on the same judgement,” said Annuar.

He said it was wrong for Marzuki to say that Malaysia still planned to appeal the ICJ decision.

“As such, we asked for a ruling from the speaker, according to Rule 18(2) of the Standing Order, to debate the matter. Or refer the deputy minister, according to Rule 36 (12), to the Rights and Privileges Committee.

“We will write to the speaker’s office on this tomorrow and hope that the speaker makes a ruling, failing which we will file a motion to refer him to the Rights and Privileges Committee,” said Annuar.

A day after his statement in the Dewan Rakyat, Marzuki said that his statement on Pulau Batu Puteh concerned the implementation of the 2008 ICJ judgment and not on staking a claim for the rocky outcrop.

He said his statement was clear about the government’s commitment to implementing the ICJ judgment in the matter of sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh, Batuan Tengah (Middle Rocks) and Tubir Selatan (South Ledge).

“The issue I talked about is for us to go ahead with the implementation of the ICJ judgment through the Malaysia-Singapore Joint Technical Committee. My statement was clear and there was no statement on reclaiming (Pulau) Batu Puteh,” he said. – July 9, 2019.