In spite of it creating a new precedent in Sarawak's legal history, news of the Kuching High Court's decision delivered in chambers by a deputy registrar on behalf of Justice Ian Chin, from Sabah, did not make it to the front-page of local newspapers.
Sarawak's leading English-language daily The Sarawak Tribune did not even carry the news nor did the local radio stations. Most other newspapers, both English and Chinese, carried the news in their inside pages, many of them making brief references only.
Four natives from a longhouse area in Sebau, Bintulu, in northern Sarawak had sought a judicial declaration they remain in effect the right owners of customary rights land that has been turned over by the land office by way of a lease to a paper and pulp mill for a tree plantation project.
The judge ruled in
their favour, saying native customary rights over lands the Iban traditionally
refer to as tanah temuda, pulau, tembawai and pemakai menoa have
from the early days to the present time survived all orders and legislation.
Malaysiakini has been told there are at least 20 other cases pending in Sarawak courts relating to NCR land issues.
Land registry
According to a national newspaper correspondent based in Kuching who requested not to be identified, when he asked Tuai Rumah (headman) Nor Nyawai, one of the four plaintiffs in the case, how he felt after the High Court granted the declaration, the latter replied, "I am breathless and I simply cannot describe just how happy and relieved I feel right now."
The tuai rumah has become a hero of sorts in his quest to fight for the rights of his people and to protect and preserve their rights on what is commonly called NCR land or tanah pesaka which has been handed down for generations from one kin to the next.
In recent years, however, with the increasing pace of economic development, the government's focus has also been on the development of NCR lands estimated at around three million hectares or more. Part of the effort is through joint ventures with NCR land owners such as in Kanowit and Teru, Baram by bringing in big plantation companies from Peninsular Malaysia, among others.
In others, conflicts have arisen when certain lands that the authorities say are state land and the natives say are not but are NCR lands are leased to companies for other projects, such as the paper and pulp mill in Bintulu.
The state government has tried to assuage and allay the fears on the part of NCR land owners, mostly Dayaks living in the interior longhouses, by setting up a separate native land registry so they can stake their claims.
But Dayak intellectuals, including some politicians and academicians, are saying that the titles issued under this separate registry are useless because they cannot be used to charge for mortgage.
"The best is to adopt the land settlement exercise and issue titles within the provisions of the Sarawak Land Code before the previous amendments," one said. "If necessary, they can even be converted to Mixed Zone so the titles will have more significant monetary value," he added.
Most owners of NCR lands are Dayaks who make up the Bidayuh, Iban, Kayan, Kenyah, Murut, Lun Bawang, Kelabit and Penan.
Appeal notice
Therefore,
Saturday's High Court decision has come as "the best Gawai Dayak
gift", according to a local Iban leader caught in the euphoria. The Dayak
community who will be celebrating Gawai Dayak or Harvest Festival on June 1, a
public holiday in Sarawak.
A strong proponent of NCR land, Sidi Munan, said Justice Chin's findings on points of facts and law confirm native customary rights on specific lands remain as intact as before. "This should never have been disputed in the first place," she said.
Munan is a supreme council member of Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) and one-time private secretary to the late Tun Temenggong Jugah, the federal minister of Sarawak affairs in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Munan told malaysiakini that he was rather disappointed that one of the lawyers representing the defendants uttered words to the effect that "the natives are squatters".
"The natives maintain their native customary rights over tanah pesaka, and the High Court has re-affirmed that now," he said.
Malaysiakini understands that the defendants in this case have 30 days to file a notice of appeal.
"If they proceed with the appeal, the Appellate Court will only look at points of law," one Iban lawyer said. "Normally, it will not want to interfere with the High Court’s findings on facts and law," he added.