KUCHING: A Sarawak non-governmental organisation declared unlawful last year on the grounds of being “a threat to national security” filed for judicial review in a Kuching High Court yesterday against Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s order.

The Sarawak Association for People’s Aspiration (Sapa), described by founder Lina Soo as a group of “housewives and retired civil servants”, disclosed that the application for leave to hear the review is on Feb 9.

Soo, Hugh Lawrence Zehnder and Tibram Pilang, in filing the judicial review on behalf of Sapa, named the home minister, the Registrar of Societies and the Malaysian government as respondents.

Soo said the ban was against their rights to freedom of speech and association; denied them natural justice of the right to be heard; was irrational, an abuse and an unreasonable exercise of discretionary power and was unconstitutional and procedurally improper.

Zahid in declaring Sapa an unlawful society under Section 5 of the Societies Act 1966 on Nov 14, said Sapa was being used for purposes prejudicial to the interests of the security of Malaysia and public order.

The NGO at the time was on a campaign to collect information to prove the Malaysia Agreement of 1963 — the agreement that led to the formation of Malaysia — was invalid.

Information collected, if proven correct in an international court of law, could lead to the separation of Sarawak and Sabah from Peninsular Malaysia.

Sapa had in August also written to the United Nations to seek its assistance “to review the arbitrary and indecorous surrender” of Sarawak’s sovereignty by the United Kingdom to the federation of Malaysia”.

It said the “surrender”, which was sanctioned by the United Nations, was done “without [the] exercise of the right to self-determination in contravention of the spirit and letter of the United Nations and Decolonisation Declaration adopted by the General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) of December 14, 1960”.

The letter, addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and the UN Human Rights Committee, was handed over to the UN office in Kuala Lumpur.

Sapa’s legal counsel Dominique Ng said the Sapa ban was a serious matter of public interest as it struck “at the very tenets of democracy and fundamental civil liberties — freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of association — which are guaranteed in the Malaysian constitution”.

Ng, the former PKR Sarawak chief and former assemblyman for Padungan, added that Sapa had always conducted its activities within the ambit of its constitution as a legally constituted organisation.

Soo had three months to file the application. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 28, 2015.