SINGAPORE, May 31 — Professor S Jayakumar said today that he is “not surprised” that Malaysia has withdrawn its bid to challenge the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) 2008 ruling on Pedra Branca, noting that Putrajaya’s filing had “very weak legal basis”.

Responding to media queries on the discontinuance of Malaysia’s application at The Hague, he said: “Frankly, I was very surprised when the former Malaysian Government brought these two cases.”

“Our foreign counsel, as well as we in the Singapore team, felt that Malaysia’s cases had very weak legal basis. We were very confident of our own legal case on both applications,” added Prof Jayakumar, who is the Chair of Singapore’s Pedra Branca ICJ Committee.

He said he was “not surprised that the new Malaysian Government had proposed to discontinue both these cases”.

“This has put the matter to rest amicably.”

The former law and foreign affairs minister recounted that he has been working with the Singapore legal team on Malaysia’s two applications since February last year, when Malaysia filed its revision application.

All the members of the team were fully prepared for the oral hearings at the ICJ initially scheduled to be held next month, Prof Jayakumar stated.

Some members of the team are disappointed that the cases will not be heard. They had put in a lot of work and were looking forward to arguing our cases before the ICJ Judges, he said.

A statement from Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) yesterday said Malaysia had informed the ICJ on May 28 that it would discontinue the two applications it filed last year challenging ICJ’s decision to award Pedra Branca to Singapore.

ICJ had scheduled eight days of hearing from June 11 to 22 on the two applications.

The Republic responded a day later to inform the ICJ that it agreed with Malaysia’s decision. Prior to that, Malaysia’s solicitor general had also written to Singapore about Putrajaya’s decision, which the Republic’s Attorney-General replied to in agreement.

MFA added: “In letters dated May 29, 2018, the ICJ informed Malaysia and Singapore that the court had placed on record the discontinuance, by agreement of the parties, of the proceedings instituted on February 2 2017 and June 30 2017 by Malaysia against Singapore, and directed that the cases be removed from the Court’s List.”

Under ICJ rules, an application for a revision of ruling must be made within six months of the discovery of a new fact and within 10 years of the date of the judgement.

ICJ had ruled on May 23, 2008, that Singapore had sovereignty over Pedra Branca, located some 24 nautical miles to the east of the Republic.

With the 10-year deadline over, Malaysia will no longer be able to file another challenge in the future. Putrajaya has not officially commented on, or publicly explained, its decision to withdraw the applications.

Prof Jayakumar also said today that he has been “cheered by the way the Singapore Pedra Branca team has worked”, noting how the more senior lawyers like Professor Tommy Koh, former Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, Attorney-General Lucien Wong and himself have worked very well with the younger international lawyers in the team.

He added that he was very impressed by the legal acumen and total dedication of the younger lawyers in the team. “We now have a new generation of highly competent international lawyers. We are in good hands when similar international legal disputes arise in the future,” he said.

He also lauded the inter-agency effort, with close collaboration between the Attorney-General’s Chambers, MFA, Maritime and Port Authority, National Archives of Singapore, Ministry of Law, Ministry of Defence and other agencies.

He said that the Republic also had an excellent trio of foreign legal counsel, comprising Professor Alain Pellet, Rodman Bundy and Daniel Müller. — TODAY