Federal Government Files Stay After Missing First Constitutional Deadline

3 March 2026

KOTA KINABALU: The Federal Government’s application to stay the High Court’s Order of 17 October 2025 has drawn attention to the timing of the move and its constitutional implications.

Former Sabah Law Society (SLS) president Datuk Roger Chin said the Federal Government has today filed an application to stay the High Court’s Order which had declared a constitutional breach and issued mandamus compelling the performance of a constitutional duty within fixed timelines.

The High Court directed that the constitutional review required under Article 112D be conducted within 90 days and that agreement be reached within 180 days. According to the Government’s own affidavit, the 90-day period expired on 14 January 2026 and the 180-day period will expire on 15 April 2026.

No stay was sought when judgment was delivered in October 2025, nor in the weeks that followed, or before the expiry of the first compliance deadline. The application was filed only on 3 March 2026, after the 90-day period had already lapsed.

Chin who is also an appointed assemblyman stated, “That is not a minor procedural detail. It is the defining fact.”

“A party that genuinely believes an order should not operate pending appeal acts immediately to prevent its operation. It does not allow time to pass, permit part of the order to fall due, and then invoke urgency when the consequences of inaction become real.

“Urgency discovered only after deadlines have expired is not urgency; it is reaction.”

The affidavit supporting the stay suggests that compliance may give rise to “irreversible” consequences and refers to the possibility of contempt proceedings if the Order is not stayed.

“Contempt arises only from disobedience. To characterise the ordinary enforcement of a court’s judgment as prejudice is, in substance, to treat compliance as an injury,” said Chin, in response.

He also noted the acknowledgement that negotiations with the State Government are already ongoing.

“More revealing still is the acknowledgement that negotiations with the State Government are already ongoing. Engagement is happening. Discussions are underway. The practical machinery of review is not impossible. What appears intolerable is not the act of compliance, but compliance within fixed judicial timelines and under the discipline of enforceable obligation,” he added.

Chin further observed that mandamus was granted because the Court found decades of constitutional non-compliance, and that the deadlines were imposed in response to prolonged delay.

“When a stay is sought only after one deadline has expired and another is imminent, the inference is difficult to avoid. The issue is not procedural fairness. It is discomfort with finality,” he said.

While noting that the right of appeal is not in question, Chin emphasised the significance of timing.

“In matters of constitutional governance, sequence is not optics. It is evidence. And the sequence here speaks with clarity,” said Chin.