KOTA KINABALU: Thirteen civil society organisations are still pursuing a judicial review on Sabah's Nature Conservation (NCA) deal with a Singapore-based company to carry out carbon credit trade.
Civil Society Alliance spokesperson Cynthia Ong said that the judicial review is set to be heard by the Kota Kinabalu High Court in April 2024.
She said this amid doubts that the coalition would pursue a judicial review after the deal in October 2021 between the Sabah government and Hoch Standard Pte Ltd involving two million hectares of Sabah's forest reserves.
Chief conservator of forests, Datuk Frederick Kugan, recently confirmed that a pilot plot in the Nuluhon TrusMadi Class One Forest Reserve in the Tambunan district had been identified so that the company could implement its carbon trading model.
However, he said the company had yet to provide relevant documents to the Sabah Attorney General's Chambers as part of the Sabah government's "due diligence" to ascertain the company's ability to undertake the project.
He said that the Sabah government was also reviewing several clauses within the signed NCA.
In a statement on Saturday (Mar 23), Ong said that the judicial review could provide the resolution sought by Sabahans.
A judicial review enables a court to examine the conduct of an administrative agency – in this case, the relevant agencies of the Sabah government – to see if they have acted within the scope of their powers, she said.
A petition for a judicial review of the NCA was filed by indigenous rights activist Adrian Lasimbang in 2022. He represented 13 CSOs who claimed that the deal was not only "lopsided" but infringed on Native Customary Rights.
In December 2023, four special rapporteurs of the United Nations formally wrote to the Malaysian government, querying numerous aspects of the agreement in the light of international norms and law.
Malaysia's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Datuk Nadzirah Osma, responded alongside the Sabah government to assure the United Nations that the NCA is on hold pending the resolution of various matters and that the NCA was not intended to repress and diminish the rights of native Sabahans.
