KOTA KINABALU: More definitive guidelines need to be incorporated into the state constitution for the Governor to appoint a chief minister, says the Sabah Law Society (SLS).
The legal body said the deletion of Article 6(7) of the state constitution by the Sabah assembly last week had effectively left a vacuum for guiding the Yang di-Pertua Negeri in appointing a chief minister who commands a majority in the assembly.
SLS president Roger Chin said there was a need to put in place a more definitive article for the Governor to determine whether a member does command a majority in the assembly to ensure “certainty and transparency” in the appointment of the chief minister.
The state government under Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor moved to delete Article 6(7) that guided the Governor to pick the leader of the majority party to be the chief minister.
The Article was put in place in the Sabah constitution in 1990 to stop power grabs by parties that did not win a majority in an election.
It has raised concerns as the last two state elections – in 2018 and 2020 – did not see any single party emerging a clear winner.
During the assembly sitting on May 25, 61 of the 75 assemblymen present voted in favour of the deletion of the Article while 14 opposition Warisan assemblymen opposed it.
In allaying concerns raised during debates over the deletion of Article 6(7), Hajiji had said a select committee would be set up to replace the Article with a more definitive guide.
Chin said the recent method of using statutory declarations by politicians to prove their majority was unreliable.
