An article by Voon Lee Shan,
former State Assemblyman for Batu Lintang and Legal Advisor for Parti Bumi Kenyalang

The words used by Dr Yii, MP for Bandar Kuching, "It is basically a proposal to get feedback from the Bar's members and it's associates" to me, seems to indicate that this is a job from the federal government.

Nobody could be a busy body to do such a job. This could be a systematic strategy by the federal government to take away the constitutional rights of Sabah and Sarawak.

If it is correct that this Legal Profession Bill 2019 was the work of the federal government, this shows that the federal government has very little respect of the people of Sabah and Sarawak. This is because Sabah and Sarawak have their own law to regulate the legal profession in both Borneo States.

This Bill, if tabled will surely be passed because Sabah and Sarawak do not have enough vote to oppose the Bill. Since this a government Bill, Pakatan Harapan MPs from Sabah and Sarawak may speak against the Bill during the debate, they would be expected to vote for the Bill into law. They are bound to support their own PH government.

Once passed as law and extended to Sabah and Sarawak, the livelihood of lawyers in both Borneo States would be affected. Lawyers in Borneo States may not be able to compete with lawyers from Malaya because law firms from Malaya many, if not most are much bigger than any law firm here. Since banks and insurance companies are from Malaya, they would, for convenience, prefer to deal with law firms from malaya and not with law firms in the Borneo States.

Lawyers from Malaya will then be engaged by Petronas to re-file the suit against our state government of Sarawak to claim exclusive rights over all oil and gas in our state under the Petroleum Development Act 1974.

I hope Dr. Yii will be able to find out the source of the Bill.