KUCHING: The Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) was never meant to list specific industries such as oil and gas, but to constitutionally safeguard Sarawak’s rights and laws as they existed at the time of Malaysia’s formation, said Senator Datuk Ahmad Ibrahim.
He said the absence of explicit provisions on oil and gas in MA63 does not weaken Sarawak’s constitutional protections, as the agreement’s core purpose is to preserve the rights, powers and laws of Sarawak and Sabah from being overridden by later federal legislation without due constitutional process.
While acknowledging that MA63 does not expressly state ownership of oil and gas, Ahmad said the agreement was never intended to function as a sector-by-sector legal document.
“The absence of specific terminology does not negate this protection. On the contrary, MA63 should be read as a constitutional guarantee that state rights — particularly those related to land and resources — remain preserved unless lawfully amended in accordance with the Federal Constitution.
“Reducing MA63 to what it does not list risks disregarding both its intent and its legal effect,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
Ahmad was responding to remarks by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, who said MA63 does not contain provisions on the ownership, management or regulation of oil and gas, nor does it govern the roles of petroleum entities such as PETRONAS or PETROS.
Clarifying his position, Ahmad said the issue is not about asserting that MA63 explicitly allocates oil and gas resources to the states.
Instead, he said it concerns the constitutional recognition that MA63 preserves Sarawak’s existing rights and laws, and that federal laws enacted after 1963 do not automatically override those rights.
“The issue is one of constitutional continuity and due legal process, not semantics,” he added.
