KOTA KINABALU, April 3 — Sabah must repeal the amendment to its constitution that gazetted 13 new state seats or risk a constitutional crisis, since the state was left out of the redelineation exercise, Parti Warisan Sabah president Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal said today.

The 13 new state seats were left out of the Election Commission’s (EC) redelineation report that was passed in Parliament last week, which means that Sabah is very likely to enter into the coming elections with only 60 seats, which Shafie said will be unconstitutional.

“It now involves the matter of constitution. If they want to repeal it, it needs to be done in the state assembly. If they want to reject it, it has to be done in Parliament.

“No Prime Minister in the country has the power to repeal an enactment. It has to be done in the Dewan. No Chief Minister — Musa Aman repeal it — he cannot talk to the Prime Minister and say, ‘sir, we reject this bill’. No, you can’t do that it’s an enactment — under the law,” Shafie told reporters at a media luncheon yesterday.

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Shafie said that when he brought it up in Parliament, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi answered his question and said the Prime Minister had the authority under Article 13 of the Federal Constitution, but Shafie rejected this claim.

“I don’t see any power of the Prime Minister there. If the Prime Minister can repeal any enactment in the state, that’s very dangerous,” he said.

Shafie said that the Sabah state enactment has to be respected, being gazetted by the highest power in Sabah, while the highest body in Malaysia — Parliament — has the right to pass or reject the motion on the creation of 13 state seats in Sabah.

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He also said that the delay of tabling in Parliament the 13 state seats in the redelineation exercise would be understandable if elections were not looming.

“But there is about to be a dissolution and the moment you dissolve, under the constitution, Sabah has 73 seats, not 60, you cannot just erase this. They have to repeal,” he said.

The Sabah state assembly had in August two years ago gazetted 13 new state seats, amending its constitution to allow 73 state constituencies altogether.

There has been much anticipation over when the motion will be passed at Parliament, but when the government tabled the EC report in Parliament recently, there was no mention of Sabah.

Opposition parties and observers have said that the exclusion could mean that election results could be disputed in court if Parliament does not endorse the changes in time, or Sabah does not repeal the gazetted amendments in its constitution.

Meanwhile, Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders, including component party leaders who were pushing for the 13 seats to be endorsed, have rallied together and said that the amendment had to go through the due process of being passed in Parliament.

State Secretary Sukarti Wakiman had said the motion would be tabled together with that of new parliamentary seats in the state at a future Dewan Rakyat meeting.

Taking a step further, Sabah Progressive Party SAPP President Datuk Yong Teck Lee and six other opposition members have taken the initiative to file a suit against the Prime Minister and the EC to compel them to table the EC report on the 13 additional state seats at the current Parliament meeting, which is scheduled to end Thursday.

The local opposition coalition is seeking a court declaration that the Prime Minister is constitutionally bound to table the EC report on the additional 13 seats in the Dewan Rakyat in time for the 14th general election.

Yong added the group also sought the court’s declaration that the constitution did not provide any discretionary power to the Prime Minister not to table the EC report in the Dewan Rakyat.

“This will contradict what Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi told Parliament last week that the PM has the discretion not to table the report. There is no discretion under the constitution.

“The decision whether to approve the EC review is up to the Dewan Rakyat and not the prime minister,” he was reported saying in a local news portal.