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P Waytha Moorthy said the superior courts in the country had recognised and repeatedly reaffirmed customary land rights due to, among other factors, the special position of the Orang Asli under Article 8(5)(c) of the Federal Constitution.
He said the Orang Asli community were equal in the eyes of the law and pre-existing customary rights enjoyed by them cannot be removed by claiming their land to be state land.
It also cannot be removed, he added, to establish reserves or for granting leases or licences to a third party under the pretext of being owned by the state government.
“Customary rights in itself are a form of unwritten law.
“It is unreasonable to assume that a custom has no force of law merely because it is not codified in the state.
“Even if that were the case, it does not mean that a customary right does not exist or that common law does not recognise that particular custom,” the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, in charge of national unity and social wellbeing, said in a statement.
Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar Mohd Amar Abdullah had said on Friday the land the Orang Asli own had been given by the state government.
“The Orang Asli do not own any land except for the ones that were awarded by the state government,” he told FMT.
He said this in response to Putrajaya’s decision to file a suit on behalf of the indigenous community against the Kelantan government’s alleged land grabs.
The suit – the first by the federal government involving native land rights – seeks an injunction to stop private companies from encroaching into native lands to carry out commercial activities.
The Kelantan government and its agencies had, in recent times, granted logging licences to private companies to enter the native land of the Temiar Orang Asli in Pos Simpor, near Gua Musang, where forests were cleared to make way for durian and rubber tree plantations.
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