Who may remove the Ruler of Negeri Sembilan? [3/NS]

Who may remove the Ruler of Negeri Sembilan? [3/NS]

Who may lawfully remove Negeri Sembilan’s ruler — the grounds, the enquiry, and the signature the chiefs cannot skip.

by GK Ganesan June 6, 2026 33 Views

The bottom line

Two different removals are being talked about as if they were one. Removing the man on the throne — the Yang di-Pertuan Besar — is tightly fenced: specific grounds, a “full and complete enquiry”, and a proclamation that does not bite unless the Undangs and the Menteri Besar both put their names to it. Removing an Undang is a different question, governed by the custom of his own district. This essay sets out who may do what, and how the constitution fences each power. Whether those fences were respected in 2026 is a question for a court — and we leave it there.

First, separate the two removals

The single most common confusion in the public debate is to run together two removals that the constitution keeps apart.

The first is the removal — or, more precisely, the requiring to step back or step down — of the Yang di-Pertuan Besar, the elected ruler of the whole state. The second is the removal of an Undang, one of the four ruling chiefs of the luak. They sit in different chapters, answer to different procedures, and raise different legal questions. Treat them as one and you will reach the wrong answer about both.

This essay is mostly about the first. The second — and in particular the fiercely contested question of whether a particular Undang had already lost his office — is so important that it gets an essay of its own (4/NS). Here we lay out the rules. We do not apply them to the facts of the pending case.

Removing the ruler: three fences

The power to move against the Yang di-Pertuan Besar lives in Article X (Article 10) of the Laws of the Constitution of Negeri Sembilan 1959.¹ The constitution builds three fences around it.

Fence one: the grounds. The power is not at large. It is tied to defined, serious grounds — a “great and serious defect” such as insanity, blindness or dumbness; a “base quality” incompatible with the office under religious law; an “overt act detrimental to the sanctity, honour and dignity” of the ruler; or a deliberate disregard of the constitution.² These are not everyday political disagreements dressed up. They are grave matters, and the gravity is the point: the constitution made the throne hard to disturb on purpose.

Fence two: the enquiry. The power may be exercised only “after full and complete enquiry by the Undangs”.³ Three words carry the weight here — full, complete, and enquiry. They describe a process, not a verdict announced. A former Court of Appeal judge has put the point in public terms a layman can hold: any removal must keep to due process, including a real enquiry and the ordinary requirements of fairness — that the person affected knows the case against him and has a chance to answer it.⁴ Whether such an enquiry occurred in 2026 is precisely what is contested, and precisely what we will not decide.

Fence three: the joint proclamation. Even a properly-grounded, properly-enquired decision does not take effect by the chiefs’ say-so alone. On the commentators’ reading of the proviso to Article X(2), the proclamation is unenforceable unless issued jointly by the Undangs and the Menteri Besar.⁵ This is the quiet constitutional masterstroke. It hands the initiative to the customary chiefs but the consummation to the elected government, so that neither can move against the ruler without the other. As things stand, the Menteri Besar has not signed.⁶ We record that and move on; what it means in law is for the bench.

Three fences, then — grounds, enquiry, joint proclamation. The architecture is designed so that removing the ruler is possible but difficult, and impossible to do unilaterally. That is not an accident of drafting. It is the whole idea.

Removing an Undang: a customary act, with a constitutional witness

The second removal works on a different logic. An Undang is made by the custom of his luak — “lawfully elected in accordance with the custom of their respective Luaks”, in the words of Article XIV(1) (Article 14(1)) — and he is unmade the same way: “removed from office in accordance with the custom of his Luak.”⁷ The removal of a chief is, in the first place, a customary act, done within his district by the people whose business it is.

But it does not happen entirely out of sight of the constitution. The council established by Article XVI (Article 16) — the Dewan Keadilan dan Undang — exists precisely to advise on questions of custom, expressly including questions of the “removal from … office” of a ruling chief.⁸ So the shape is: custom removes the chief; the DKU advises on whether the removal was good; and — by the 1982 amendment we met in essay 2/NS — that advice is declared final and beyond the courts.⁹

Note, in passing, the recurring slip we flagged in essay 2/NS: the public debate routinely places the power to remove an Undang in “Article 14(3)”, whereas the official text makes XIV(3) an allowance clause and locates the advice-and-finality machinery in Article XVI.¹⁰ We continue to hold that discrepancy open. It is not idle. If the removal of a chief turns out to be governed and protected by Article XVI, the legal questions around it look different from how they look if it is governed by Article XIV(3).

Two cross-checks the constitution builds in

Whichever removal is in play, two structural rules sit across the top of the whole arrangement.

The composite Ruler. Under Article XXVIII (Article 28), the “Ruler” is not the man alone but the man together with his chiefs; for a range of state-constitutional functions, the ruler and at least three of the four Undang must act together.¹¹

The quorum of three. Under Article XXIX (Article 29), the Undangs’ powers are validly exercised only if exercised by at least three of them.¹²

Put those together and a sharp question emerges, one that the next essay is built around: any move that depends on the Undang acting as the Undang must clear the bar of three valid chiefs. Not three people who say they are chiefs. Three who, in law and in custom, are.

The rival readings, laid side by side

Here is the careful part. What follows is not a view on who is right. It is a map of the two positions, so that a reader can see what the court will have to weigh.

One reading runs like this. The constitution gives the four Undang the power to move against the ruler; the Undang say they held the enquiry the constitution requires; and they say they acted within the old order that the constitution itself preserves. On this reading, the removal is the considered act of the state’s constitutional electors, performed under a power the constitution expressly grants.¹³

The other reading runs like this. Article X cannot be used loosely; “full and complete enquiry” means a real process, with notice and a fair hearing; the proviso to Article X(2) requires the Menteri Besar’s signature, which has not been given; and a removal that skips these steps is not a removal at all.¹⁴

Each reading is internally coherent. Each rests on a different answer to the same handful of questions. And those questions are legal questions — questions about the meaning of words in a constitution and whether a defined process was followed — even though they arise in a field shaped, top to bottom, by adat.

The open questions

This essay does not resolve the dispute. It leaves on the table the questions a court will have to confront — and confront them it may, because some of them are about constitutional compliance, not about the wisdom of custom:

• What does “full and complete enquiry” require, and was such an enquiry held?

• Was the ruler given notice of the case against him and a fair opportunity to answer?

• What is the legal effect, under the Article X(2) proviso, of a proclamation the Menteri Besar has not signed?

• And — the question that will not go away — was the removal of an Undang governed and shielded by Article XVI, or by Article XIV(3); and does it make a difference which?

We have set out who may remove whom, and the fences around each power. Whether the fences held is the business of the court. The next essay turns to the question on which a great deal of this balances: when the four chiefs acted, were they four chiefs at all?

∞§∞

This is essay 3 of six in a linked series on the 2026 Negeri Sembilan constitutional dispute. It sets out the constitutional rules and the rival legal positions; it expresses no view on the merits of any matter now before the courts.¹⁵

∞§∞

This article is written for a general readership and does not constitute technical or legal advice. Readers with legal questions are encouraged to seek independent legal advice.

The author thanks KN Geetha, TP Vaani, JN Lheela, and Lydia Jaynthi at GK Legal.

Claude, Anthropic’s AI, smoothed the drafting; Perplexity Pro checked the facts. Advocate, editor and sceptic together made one essay better than any could alone. The argument, the views, and the errors remain the author’s.

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Who may remove the Ruler of Negeri Sembilan? [3/NS]

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