KUCHING: Sri Aman MP Datuk Seri Doris Brodie has backed Works Minister Datuk Seri Alexander Nanta Linggi after constitutional expert Dr Abdul Aziz Bari urged him to resign over remarks made during a radio interview.
Aziz had said Nanta had breached the principle of collective cabinet responsibility and should step down.
“If invoking the Malaysia Agreement 1963 is now treated as improper, then Malaysia is no longer debating governance; it is quietly recoiling from its own origins,” Doris said when contacted by Sarawak Tribune yesterday (Feb 1).
She said the resignation call “does not merely miss the point” and reflects a deeper unease within Malaysia’s political psyche.
From a legal perspective, she described Aziz’s argument as “perhaps technically defensible but constitutionally insufficient,” noting that collective cabinet responsibility restrains ministers from contradicting government policy but does not prevent them from articulating constitutional realities or political identity.
She maintained that Nanta neither announced a dissenting policy nor undermined cabinet decisions, but expressed political frustration rooted in Sarawak’s historical status as a founding partner of Malaysia.
“Article 43(3) of the Federal Constitution cannot be stretched into a tool for silencing ministers from East Malaysia when they speak on federal legitimacy,” she said.
Doris added that Nanta did not challenge the Constitution or call for secession, but instead spoke about recalibrating federal-state relations through MA63 — the very instrument that enabled Sarawak and Sabah to form Malaysia.
“To reframe this as resignable conduct is to downgrade MA63 from a founding covenant into a political inconvenience,” she said.
Emphasising the agreement’s significance, she described MA63 as “constitutive law”, noting that Malaysia exists because Sarawak and Sabah agreed to join on specific terms.
“One cannot profess loyalty to the federation while treating the conditions of its formation as optional,” she said, reiterating a long-held Sarawakian view that “Sarawak was not taken into Malaysia — Malaysia exists because Sarawak agreed to it.”
She also warned that the resignation call could set a dangerous precedent, implying that East Malaysian leaders may refer to MA63 only within limits acceptable to Malayan sensibilities.
“That is not constitutional discipline; it is political containment. Foundational agreements do not require permission to be defended,” she added.
Highlighting the distinction between legality and legitimacy, Doris said unity is preserved not through enforced silence but by honouring what was promised.
“If reaffirming MA63 is considered destabilising, then the instability lies not in the words spoken but in the institutional discomfort they provoke.
“MA63 is not a threat to Malaysia. It is Malaysia’s original contract. To punish a minister for saying so is not to defend the Federation — it is to expose anxiety about the very terms on which it was formed,” she said.
