By Remy Majangkim
KOTA KINABALU: When federal ministries in Putrajaya draft sweeping regulatory frameworks, they frequently operate under a persistent administrative illusion: that a uniform penstroke in Kuala Lumpur automatically translates into an absolute mandate across the South China Sea.
The latest regulatory friction brewing over the enforcement and compliance deadlines of Act 774 (Allied Health Professions Act 2016) highlights this exact structural blind spot. In attempting to enforce centralized, uniform licensing parameters over allied health professionals across the nation, federal regulators are inadvertently steering toward a significant constitutional wall.
That wall is the sovereign legislative machinery of Borneon local governance.
To understand why a blanket federal act cannot simply crush or supersede local operational realities in East Malaysia, one must look past standard bureaucratic directives and examine the strict legal architecture of the Federal Constitution. Under the Ninth Schedule, while general medicine and health reside on the Federal List, Public Health, Sanitation, and the Prevention of Diseases sit squarely on the Concurrent List (List III).
This dual jurisdiction means that both the Federal Parliament and the State Legislative Assemblies of Sabah and Sarawak hold equal legislative rights.
Crucially, for the Borneo states, this concurrency is heavily fortified. Under Article 95B(1)(a) of the Federal Constitution, Sabah is granted supplementary legislative powers designed explicitly to safeguard its domestic machinery.
When a federal council utilizes Act 774 to impose compliance standards that threaten to retroactively invalidate or penalize local municipal operations, it doesn’t merely regulate a profession—it directly encroaches upon Local Government (List II, Item 4), which is an exclusive State List matter.
The statutory teeth of this constitutional shield are cleanly preserved within the Sabah Public Health Ordinance 1960. Section 3(1) of the Ordinance explicitly bifurcates executive authority, drawing a hard line between federal administration and state matters.
Furthermore, Section 4(1) dictates that the appointment and execution of public health enforcement personnel within an administrative division require the prior approval of the local municipal authorities. Putrajaya lacks the constitutional machinery to seamlessly enforce its will on Borneon soil without the explicit consent and cooperation of the state’s executive branch.
We have already witnessed the real-time operational precedence of this legal boundary.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Government attempted to utilize Act 342 (Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988) to dictate absolute, blanket movement control orders and trade restrictions.
Yet, those uniform mandates routinely yielded to the specific protocols established by the Sabah and Sarawak State Disaster Management Committees, operating under their respective Public Health Ordinances. Local municipal councils—from City Hall in Kota Kinabalu to municipal boards in Sandakan and Tawau—exercised their sovereign right to dictate local trade permissions, quarantine boundaries, and municipal health enforcement.
If a literal global health emergency could not legally erase or supersede the statutory autonomy of Borneo’s local authorities, a standard regulatory framework like Act 774 certainly cannot.
This structural decentralization was not a historical accident. It was a core, non-negotiable condition embedded within the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) and the Inter-Governmental Committee (IGC) Report, intentionally designed to protect the civic and domestic machinery of the Borneo states from being swallowed by a centralized federal bureaucracy.
The Judicial Reality: How the Courts Guard the Frontier
If this regulatory friction over Act 774 were to scale into a full legal showdown within the High Court of Sabah and Sarawak, a sitting judge would not simply defer to Putrajaya’s administrative weight. Under established constitutional jurisprudence, the court would subject the federal mandate to the Doctrine of Pith and Substance—examining whether a federal health law is being unconstitutionally weaponized to encroach upon Local Government (List II), an exclusive state domain.
Backed by the Principle of Harmonious Construction, a Borneon judge would look to preserve the integrity of both statutes rather than allowing a federal act to hollow out local livelihoods. Crucially, using the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) as an interpretive anchor, the judiciary is bound to respect the historical safeguards that protect East Malaysia’s domestic machinery from total centralization.
The legal precedent is clear: Putrajaya can draft national standards, but under Article 80(2), it cannot strip a Sabahan municipal council of its sovereign, statutory right to execute and govern its own territory. It is, by all accounts, a constitutional checkmate.
The Human Landscape
Yet, as we audit these dense legal mechanisms, the dry prose of constitutional law eventually must soften to acknowledge the human landscape it is built to protect. Statutes and ordinances do not exist merely to settle disputes of jurisdiction between ministers; they exist to shield real people, local livelihoods, and fragile communities.
When a centralized, one-size-fits-all federal policy ignores regional realities, it is the ordinary Sabahan operator, the rural clinic, and the local community that bear the brunt of the friction. The vast geographic distances, the clinical voids outside major urban centers, and the unique economic structures of East Malaysia require an elasticity that a rigid federal mandate simply cannot offer.
True governance is not found in the cold enforcement of uniform compliance from a distant capital. It is found in the deep, empathetic understanding of local conditions on the ground.
The immense power vested in Sabah and Sarawak’s municipal councils is a necessary constitutional shield, reminding us that laws must always serve the welfare of the people they govern, rather than forcing vulnerable local ecosystems to break under the weight of an unyielding system.
When the centralized overreach of the federal apparatus threatens to disrupt our domestic survival, the Borneo states must stand shoulder to shoulder, unyielding in our constitutional defense.
Misumpuru Tokou. (Let us unite.)
Agi Idup Agi Ngelaban. (As long as I live, I shall fight.)
