Autonomy Without Accountability Is an Empty Promise

 

 

MA63, the Legal Profession, and the Everyday Frustrations of Ordinary Sabahans.

 

As much as I believe Datuk Roger Chin is on the right track in advancing the MA63 agenda, I fear he may be overlooking a fundamental issue: a great deal of cleaning up remains to be done on the ground.

We fought to preserve autonomy over our legal profession. Was that autonomy intended merely to separate administration from Kuala Lumpur, or was it intended to promote higher standards of integrity, accountability, and public service within the profession itself?

Consider my own experience. My request for the filing fee to the Sabah Advocates Disciplinary Board (SADB) to be waived was not entertained. I am a SARA recipient receiving RM100 per month. Why would I spend an entire month's assistance simply to lodge a complaint against a member of the profession?

In addition, complainants are required to print and submit four sets of documents. Why can complaints not be filed online, with the Board printing the documents itself if public complaints are genuinely encouraged and valued?

The legal profession is not the only area that requires attention.

I have more than one hundred unanswered emails to government agencies and civil servants. The Panduan Pengurusan Pejabat states that official correspondence from the public should be given priority. Where a final response cannot be provided immediately, an acknowledgement or interim reply should be issued, followed by a substantive response within the prescribed period.

Government departments are also expected to monitor official email accounts daily and provide either a response or at least an acknowledgement of receipt.

Yet I have experienced scheduled meetings with the Ministry of Housing being postponed at the eleventh hour, only for no alternative date to be offered.

This raises a simple question. What is the purpose of clamouring for greater rights and autonomy under MA63 if the institutions closest to the rakyat are not functioning as they should?

The pursuit of MA63 is important. Few would dispute that. But autonomy must mean more than constitutional negotiations and political announcements. It must also mean accountability, responsiveness, and service at the grassroots level.

Granted, Datuk Roger Chin is heavily occupied with MA63 matters. But surely there must be others capable of addressing these day-to-day issues that directly affect ordinary Sabahans.

MA63 in brief:

At its core, MA63 is about the unique conditions and constitutional safeguards granted to Sabah and Sarawak to protect their autonomy when they agreed to merge.

Specific conditions (known as the 20-point memorandum for Sabah and 18-point memorandum for Sarawak) were integrated into the agreement.

For decades, MA63 has been at the center of intense political conversations in Malaysia. Leaders and citizens in Sabah and Sarawak have long raised grievances that their original "equal partner" status was constitutionally downgraded over time and that federal wealth-sharing commitments—particularly regarding oil and gas revenues—were not fully honored.

In recent years, the Malaysian federal government has taken active steps to address these historical grievances, including passing a constitutional amendment to explicitly recognize MA63, decentralizing certain administrative powers, and substantially increasing special financial grants to the Borneo states.