Only Malays can buy reserve land
By : V. Anbalagan
PUTRAJAYA: Non-Malays who inherited Malay reserve land can only sell the property to Malays.
However, the non-Malay owner can transfer his inheritance to his beneficiaries.
The court made these pronouncements in allowing an appeal by the legal representatives of Lee Keng Liat to recover about RM620,000 in compensation when the Malacca government acquired eight acres (2.6ha) of such land in Mukim Klebang Besar to build houses about 25 years ago.
Keng Liat had acquired the land at the turn of the 20th century after he received a certificate from the governor-in-council that entitled him to hold the customary land.
Under the Malacca Lands Customary Rights Ordinance, only a Malay living in the state or a person holding such certificate from the council was entitled to inherit such property.
On Keng Liat’s death, the property was transferred to a son, Chim Giang, who in 1935, sold the land to Tan Tai Lip.
In 1982, the authorities were ready to pay about RM1 million in compensation to Tan’s heirs. A total of RM420,000 was paid for loss of property and livelihood.
In 1986, Keng Liat’s personal representatives filed a suit at the Malacca High Court, claiming that the compensation for the loss of land was rightfully theirs.
Judge Datuk Abdul Hamid Mohamad said Tan should not have been allowed to purchase the land as he did not have a certificate from the council.
He said the transaction was illegal due to non-compliance of the ordinance.
He said he could not validate the original sale of land "as this would completely defeat the purpose of the creation of the Malacca customary land and Malay reserve land".
Sitting with Hamid were Datuk Arifin Zakaria and Datuk S. Augustine Paul.
Hamid said Malay reserve land came into existence after laws were enacted in the Malay states and the Straits Settlements to protect the land rights of the Malays.
He said the British saw it necessary to do so.
"If at all, it is for the legislature to repeal or amend the laws, not this court," he said of the unanimous ruling delivered on Friday.
Hamid, who wrote the 27-page judgment, said the court gave serious thought to the issue because of "what was happening on the ground".
"Customary land and Malay reserve land may be no more than a beautiful but empty package while the contents are enjoyed by people who are prohibited by law to own it," he said.
Don't you think that it is unfair? After all, Lee Keng Liat had acquired the land legally. He had a certificate from the governor-in-council to authenticate his purchase of the land. Why overturn the legality of the document after about 100 years? OK, one may need to sell it back to the Malays, but can a fair market price be gotten for it? Isn't it time that this ruling be reviewed and changed? After all, we are now in the 21st century? Should the term "bumiputera" be redefined to all that is born in Malaysia, instead of just to the Malay race? For the country to mature and come to adulthood, perhaps it is time that we should shed our xenophobic inheritance and have a real debate about integration in the country. If practices like the current Maybank fiasco where a law firm must have a 50% bumiputera ownership before it is able to do business with the bank persist, then all the interfaith dialogues (as promoted by the government) in the world will not achieve what it sets out to do.
12 comments:
For the Chinese and Indian Malaysians, PAS is no doubt a bigger 'evil' because of the revolutionary changes they would bring to the country.
This despite the rampant corruption and abuse of human rights by the current BN regime.
The real question we should ask is, why have we (Malaysians) ended up in a situation where we have to choose between the lesser of two evils?
The Chinese and Indian Malaysians (as well as the Ibans, Kadazans and the rest) being the minorities, really can't do much.
The question should be posed to the malays instead. It is only when the malays decide to 'reject' the racist and feudalistic Umno as well as the religiously fanatic PAS - can a strong, meaningful alternative focusing on progressive and moderate agenda emerge.
As a Malaysian of Chinese descent, I will vote and support a political party which is multiracial. A party that seeks justice upholds the rule of law and a return to the sacredness of the constitution.
Many matured democracies have seen a change in government many times over. This is proof of a working and healthy democracy. But many Asian countries have not demonstrated this in that they have had the same political party ruling since their independence.
The 'ruler' mentality is very strong in the minds of Asians but it has bred corruption, nepotism and stifled progressive thoughts and fresh ideas for the development of the nation.
Often leaders stay on way past their shelf life, scheming and fighting tooth and nail to stay on in power.
It is my hope that Malaysia will be the first among Asian countries to demonstrate maturity in allowing an opposition party to take over the helm of government should the scenario warrant it.
Will there be smooth transition of power and can the security forces be counted on to ensure peace and harmony? We can only wait for the day.
Margin financing is unproductive to the economy, it is just a form of legalised gambling. The banks are better off using their funds to spur economic growth via the financing of medium and small-scale industries.
The stock market is for investment and capital rising and as such margin financing is bad news as it allows for speculation. If you don't have the money, don't buy the shares. Why borrow and buy - isn't that what we tell credit-card defaulters?
Leave the banks alone and let them do business in peace
Politicians, in general can appear foolhardy when they pretend to competence and knowledge in areas never before traversed. This is why they need more than just good advisers. This is also why we need clever member of parliaments too.
The existing government of Malaysia, seriously hasn't an inkling what depths we, as a country has plunged in educational standards, from pre-school to tertiary levels.
Or maybe, the powers-that-be do in fact know, but are completely bankrupt of ideas on what must be done to climb back out of this bottomless hole, and what they are lip-preaching is just so that they will continue their jobs, and hand the reins of a near-death nation to the next unfortunate successor.
Don't waste your time and ours. As long as your administrators, students, and teaching staffs that are chosen based on colors and religions, and not based on merits and performances, there is no way they can even be in the top 100.
Just have a look at the qualifications of all your politicians as compared to those of Singapore. Even our prime minister has no credible qualification except being a crony of Mahathir.
What is the important of building university which is not recognised by neighbouring country, i.e. Singapore!
Talk is cheap. What are the ministers strategies to make our world class universities? If you admit mediocre malay students to fill quotas, insist on having a malays as the vice chancellor (VC) and promote lecturers based on skin color rather than ability, there is no way we can move even one notch up the ranking ladder.
For a change, put a Chinese or an Indian as the VC, that is if the minister is sincere in bringing about change, I am sure there will be progress. Most importantly, bar Umno politicians from interfering in university affairs.
This is a gigantic asking. Just dream on, man……….Pray more, you may get money but not world class universities!
All talk only but in reality can't achieve. It needs patient and understanding on the education systems. The proper guideline and implementations. Not easy to do. Talk can. To do it cannot.
Sadly it seems to be that the best education system Malaysia has ever had was under the British time. Since then it has gone downhill until where it is today. Malaysia is not famous for raising standards, but for lowering standards incessantly. Now 15 A1s is nothing but rote learning bookworm.
What else have we got to lose? We are almost at the bottom and dropping, and the only way to go is up. If you have children planning university education, start looking elsewhere.
Save money if we have and send our children overseas, just like Mahathir and all our ministers have done for their children.
Our Chinese is being abused and stupidly handing out money for the lazy people. We work hard and save money in bank but the bank give us 3-6% interest, that is way too low if compare to Australia and US.
Nevertheless, the malays can invest in government assisted fund and get 8-12% increment. What an unfair practice. We have no choice but to emigrate to others country in order to enjoy higher benefits and returns.
Malaysia will no progress and lastly became a less develop country.
Since when are public projects undertaken to benefit the people in Malaysia? You have the legion of parasitic, politically connected contractors swarming to their political masters for the juicy bits.
And even then, the projects get subbed, and subbed, and subbed……….and the people end up getting shoddy pieces of work! How much money was wasted when, after spending billions, all we get are useless, cracking supports for highways!
All this talk about pouring money into public transport is just sheer nonsense. Where I used to live, thousands of cars head to the industrial heartland of Selangor for work, and yet there is not a single bus line connecting a vast residential area directly to the work place. You have to go all the way down to town, and then change buses again.
How much sense does that make? Oh ok, in that way the bus companies (controlled by you know who) get to make more profits huh……….Even when companies like Cityliner and Intrakota get to monopolize the bus routes, they are making losses! I don't know how one does it, but one must be damn 'smart' to get a monopoly and still lose money!
While the people are sound asleep, the robbers are having a field day. Of course, both the government and the people will learn their lessons, when it is too late.
By the time they wake up from the slumber, the world would have gone far from our reach, thanks to a government (and controlled by Umno) more interested in driving posh cars, living in posh bungalows and pushing for laws that will endow them with additional mistresses and wives. But when you try to tell them something to bring them to their senses, they get angry.
Are we going to let them navigate this nation to disaster?
Look at Lim Keng Yaik, Ong Ka Ting, Samy Velu……….do they all look like saving this country? They want to save their wealth and continue robbing the country and at the same time laughing at our naivety.
No NEP version is going to succeed if the majority of the wealth is going to get redistributed to only politically connected people.
Talking about the scenic bridge, why the urgency in building this bridge? The nation has more important matters to deal with than building a crook bridge! But I guess the (politically connected) contractors are getting impatient.
If work does not start, they are not getting money, are they? There we go again! It does not matter if at the end, the bridge gets nowhere, as long as the contractors get the job done, they get their money. To hell with the people!
Everyday we are bombarded with uncontrollable outbursts from angry people in the streets who are both fed up with the lack of deliveries by the civil service, corporations, GLCs and even local councils.
You and many commentators both in the forum and others, have often time expressed both anger and frustrations, and eventually brewed into bitterness due to lack of progress and responses to our complaints and occasional outbursts.
We are definitely no lack of advisers, armchair managers, armchair supervisors, consultants, experts on papers, etc, etc. What we need and urgently need are hands-on manager, people of action, people who can get the job done.
The jumbo size cabinet is but a musical chair for spinning the 'avoidance' of responsibilities.
My business experiences have convinced me that the difference between earning and spending is not only huge but it is heaven and hell. In any organisation, it requires extraordinary tenacity to earn and sustain earnings over time when people around you are addicted to spending.
I know a number of outstanding young civil servants and heads of GLCs. These guys know what they are talking about and are very hands-on. But there is too much political interference in their work.
The outspoken ones are marginalized, removed or have resigned because of poison pen letters and scapegoat. The smart ones, unlike cream, never rise to the top.
Most people lobby hard for their jobs and are after the perks and privileges of high office, but they forget the accountability and responsibility bit. They should be properly remunerated for their work and rewarded for their performance.
Why we can't we make such types the norm, rather than the exception? Unfortunately because of politics, we have a situation in our country which can aptly described as 'politics, politics, politics' - too much of it. We are now constipated with it.
Getting to the top, in my personal experience, is the simple part of a professional man's career progression, but staying at the top is most challenging, especially in Malaysia where politics is everything. Poison pen letters - beware!
We have the tallest, longest, largest, greatest, grandest, biggest, everything; and now some record breaking events, falling, collapsing, cracking, bursting, break-downing incidents in new buildings. It is only the beginning.
We don't give a damn! We must make sure that 70% of the graduates are malays! If they can't get employed, create more job opportunities in civil works! Still can't revolve it, force the private companies to employ at least 30% malays in their companies!
Still can't solve it? Increased to 60%, to reflect the current population percentage! This is our land, we can do whatever we want. You don't like it, get lost! Semuanya ok!
If your kind (malays) have a little sense of dignity, should commit suicide long ago!
Furthermore, the suppression of information and subscribing to spoon-fed knowledge and spoon-fed news etc - we will be heading towards a cow ranch society. No need to exercise thinking power, the government do not need you to think and they prohibit you to think.
Talking about a centre of education excellence. Talking about achieving developed country status. You don't need to look far to see how far are we from achieving it.
I wonder whether our minister of education has any feeling of embarrassment or shame when he meets his counterparts of other countries.
It is not that Malaysia universities could not be in the top. We have been there in the past. The policy maker doesn't want it. They are willing to sacrifice Malaysia competitiveness for a particular group.
It has been 50 years. Malaysia has suffered for 50 years due to certain policies. With the natural resources we have, we could have achieved more than what our neighbour Singapore achieved.
It is so sad. Malaysia is a country with vast potential but under achieve. As time travel, this potential is gradually dwindling. When will they wake up?
60000 unemployed graduates summed up the quality of the universities: low quality staffs, low quality students. Smarter undergraduates are all local-overseas universities graduates or overseas graduates.
Since the 1980s, Singapore has been stealing all the good ones and that is why Singapore is well ahead than Malaysia in human resources. And they are now even stealing from Europe, Japan and US.
What is the result of our investment in Biovalley or Cyberjaya? Bolehland is good only for ideas but can't walk the talk. Vision 2020 is only a dream.
Politicians and rich peoples here rarely send their children to local universities. They know why.
Universities are seen as an opportunity for Umno to consolidate its political power base. As long as malays are given degrees even if they do not qualify for them, Umno rightly feels this will buy them loyalty. It is in fact Umno interest that malays remain insular insecure, narrow minded and uneducated. This makes it easier for them to control the noose.
Paradoxically, when you have uneducated malays, political Islam too flourishes. PAS and Umno are reverse sides of the same coin. They both flourish when there is ignorance, insecurity, racism and religious bigotry.
Malaysia public universities are not about education in its widest sense. They are political to a lesser extent PAS and breeding grounds for Umno.
Non-malays who want quality education so that they can be trained to be intellectual and to the best of their ability have to seek alternative sources. This often means going overseas. Sadly, most talented Malaysians do not return which is a terrible waste. But does Umno care? Like hell they do!
PAS and Umno are self serving. Malays must be kept in a pen like sheep and ensure they are dependent on you. One way is to give malays 'pangkat' in the form of university degrees but make sure they are worthless in quality so that only Umno will recognise your degrees and not the world.
I strongly disagree with that affirmative action doesn't work. Of course it works!
Non-malays now work twice as hard in all fields and succeed. If you notice, even more non-malays are doing well in the public examinations.
More non-malays are now venturing into new fields and succeeding in new lands. You read about successful scientists, engineers, doctors, businessmen who have left their homeland forever.
When an athlete is handicapped and yet can attain victory over his opponents, that athlete can succeed anywhere in the world. That athlete should thank his homeland for making him what he is.
Malaysia is a breeding ground for people who fight against great odds and survive. These people are the global people of tomorrow.
Is absolutely right!
For those who have been victimized under the Malaysia made meritocracy trap, look elsewhere. Opportunities abound.
Most of the talented people in the country leave because of this exact problem, the smart malays have two options, they can use their skills abroad, do something interesting, innovative, exciting, or stay in Malaysia, learn to abuse the system and their family ties and make shit loads of money.
I left Malaysia long time ago when my mother told me to look for greener pasture elsewhere.
Absolutely no regret. The local organization and government sponsored all my living and educational expenses here to the maximum I could go.
Frankly speaking, if not for those incompetent, extremist and brainless leaders and cronies who have destroyed Malaysia for the past 30 years, this land is a heaven on earth.
As a post-independence-born Malaysian, I would like to offer my thoughts on Article 153 of the federal constitution which mentions the special position of the malays. Please note that there is no mention of the words 'special privileges' or 'special rights' in the constitution.
For too long, there has been a lack of understanding of what our forefathers had in mind when they included this clause in our much talked about social contract. To gain a better understanding, let us take a trip back in time to 1957 to actually visualise the scene then.
In a scenario where the immigrant Chinese and Indians were seeking citizenship rights in Malaysia, it is reasonable to presume that they would have had to understand and acknowledge the difficulties faced by the majority malays.
And this is where the meaning of the words 'special position' comes into focus. What did our forefathers mean by the special position of the malays? Did they mean that the malays would enjoy a higher status than all the other races? Did they mean that the malays would have special rights and privileges in perpetuity?
If this is what our forefathers had intended, then our constitution would have mentioned this specifically. However, the constitution or social contract does not say so.
What then, could the words 'special position' mean? It is reasonable to infer that our forefathers were concerned first by the fact that the malays were left behind economically despite being the indigenous majority in the country.
Secondly, they were concerned by the fact that, despite being immigrants, the Chinese and a small segment of the Indian community were relatively much better off.
The clause was therefore more so of an acknowledgment by the non-malays of the disadvantageous economic situation of the malays. The consideration given by the former to the latter when entering into the social contract for citizenship rights was agree to provide some measure of support for the malays to improve their economic standing.
If our forefathers had meant for these preferences to last in perpetuity, then there would not have been a request for a review in 15 years.
When I see the compulsory requirement for non-malay companies to hand over a certain portion of their equity to the malays for no input at all, I am tempted to ask: Is this what our forefathers had in mind? I can go on listing the abuses forever because there are plenty of them.
It is intriguing to hear senior BN and Umno leaders repeatedly asking the people to adhere to the social contract. What contract they are referring to? It cannot be the federal constitution. It is most probably some contract that they have entered into unilaterally without the agreement of the non-malays.
So it seems to be incorrect to firstly equate the words 'special position' with 'special rights and privileges'. Secondly, it also seems incorrect to suggest that the malays have special rights and privileges in perpetuity and therefore, that they have a higher status than everyone else.
The non-malays only agreed to allow them preferences over the others for a finite period of time. It has now been almost 50 years since independent but has such a meaningful review of those preferences taken place at all? Absolutely not.
In fact what has happened is that successive BN governments, dominated by Umno, and especially after the 1969 tragedy, have taken the liberty to very liberally interpret Article 153. This has led to the wholesale abuse of the consideration provided by the non-malays in 1957 for their citizenship rights.
It seems to me that the real social contract of 1957 was torn up long ago by the BN government with the way in which the NEP was implemented from the 1970s onwards.
To me, the real social contract of 1957 has long been dead. I hope the day will come when the people of Malaysia in the true independent spirit will make it live again.
Then perhaps, we would not have to spend hundreds of millions ringgit on nonsensical projects like the National Service to inculcate unity amongst the races.
folks, one can:
1) get involved by becoming a politician / campaigner and try to change things,
2) leave Malaysia and go live/ work elsewhere, or
3) put up & shut up
PP, that is the problem.....most people have put up and shut up for too long. It is now time to speak up. Not everyone can become politician and campaigner, but everyone still has a voice. Again,even if one leave Malaysia and live somewhere else, we still have lots of family at home and therefore either directly,or indirectly get affected by issues in Malaysia. Plus,what is there to say that one can't go back after a long sojourn abroad?
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