Can a lawyer declare his own client’s case ‘won’? [12/NS]
A proclamation, its own lawyers said, was unconstitutional. The Executive Council voted anyway — and left civil servants not knowing who to obey.
A Lawyer’s Public Statement
On 19 September, lawyers acting for one side in the Negeri Sembilan dispute issued a public statement.
It says a ‘proclamation removing the Ruler’ became fully valid the moment it was signed, ‘gazette or no gazette’.
It says the State Secretary’s refusal to publish it, taken on his own legal adviser’s advice, is ‘misconduct’, and asks for the man’s ‘removal’.
It says any opinion against the proclamation, even from the state’s own lawyers, is merely an opinion and not an order — only the Executive Council’s own vote counts.
Tested against the law, that last claim does not survive its own logic
A man who marks his own examination paper may award himself full marks.
The paper is not, for that reason, correctly marked.
Something similar sits at the heart of this statement. It asks a resolution passed by one side of an argument to settle the argument.
What the statement actually claims
On 15 September, the Majlis Mesyuarat Kerajaan Negeri — Negeri Sembilan’s Executive Council — ‘resolved’ to accept and carry out ‘a proclamation of 19 April’, completed by the Menteri Besar’s signature that August. It told the State Secretary “to gazette it.”
On 17 September, the State Secretary said he would not.
Two days later, En. Emirul Sarifudin Nor Azmi, acting for the Undang Yang Empat and the rival claimant to the throne, said the “refusal was unlawful on four grounds”, and asked for the State Secretary “to be removed” from his post.1Media statement, ‘Keingkaran YB Setiausaha Kerajaan Negeri Sembilan Melaksanakan Proklamasi Penurunan Takhta dan Pemilihan Yang di-Pertuan Besar Negeri Sembilan,’ issued by Emirul Sarifudin Nor Azmi, counsel to Yamtuan 12, the Undang Yang Empat and the Tunku Besar Tampin, 19 September 2026; reported the same day by Malaysiakini (‘Peguam Undang gesa KSN ambil tindakan terhadap SUK N Sembilan’) and Kosmo (‘Tindakan SUK Negeri Sembilan tidak warta proklamasi, usaha rampas kuasa – Peguam’).
Among those grounds: that “gazettal was never a condition of the proclamation taking effect”, and that “the State Secretary had no business listening to the state’s own legal adviser”, whom the statement calls “an outside party”.
A ‘vote’ is not a ‘verdict’
Article 71 of the Federal Constitution says something specific.
A dispute over who holds a Ruler’s title is settled solely by the authorities a state’s own constitution names for that purpose.2Federal Constitution, art 71(1)–(2); the Ruling Chief of Negeri Sembilan is brought within the same rule by cl (2). See also Dato Menteri Othman bin Baginda & Anor v Dato Ombi Syed Alwi bin Syed Idrus [1981] 1 MLJ 29, holding a comparable Negeri Sembilan succession question outside the ordinary courts’ jurisdiction.
It is not settled by an ordinary vote of whichever Executive Council happens to be sitting at the time.
An ‘Executive Council resolution’ is exactly such an ordinary vote.
Treating it as though it had already answered the underlying question — rather than merely acted on a disputed answer — is to put the cart before the horse.
The ‘mere opinion’ argument, tried on itself
The statement is on solid ground for one part of its case.
Legal advice does not bind the person who receives it. True.
An opinion, however senior its source, is not a court order. Correct.
On the same logic, an Executive Council resolution is not a court order either.
If an opinion against the proclamation carries no special weight simply for having been given, a resolution in favour of it can claim none either, simply for having been passed.
The statement applies its own rule to the lawyers, but not to itself.
It uses one yardstick for the opinion, and a different one for its own vote.
Whose lawyer, exactly?
The statement calls the state’s own legal adviser an “outside party, not entitled to be heard”.
Malaysia’s Judicial and Legal Service Commission says the opposite.
It covers the whole legal service, created by Article 138 of the Federal Constitution.3Federal Constitution, art 138(1): “There shall be a Judicial and Legal Service Commission, whose jurisdiction shall extend to all members of the judicial and legal service.” Art 144 gives the Commission power to appoint, transfer and discipline members of that service.
The Public Service Department’s own scheme of service for Pegawai Undang-Undang (Legal Officer), grades L9 to L14, lists the Attorney General’s Chambers and each State Legal Adviser’s office as interchangeable postings within the one federal service.4Sabah and Sarawak are not part of this comparison; their own, separately constituted State Attorneys-General follow from the terms on which they joined the Federation, a different question this essay does not address.
Article 144 lets it transfer its own officers between postings, one of which is exactly this one.
A state’s legal adviser, on this reading, is a federal officer posted to advise that very state.
He is not standing outside the door. Why is that?
The State Constitution — formally the Laws of the Constitution of the Government of the State of Negeri Sembilan, or Undang-Undang Tubuh Kerajaan Negeri Sembilan (UUTKNS) — appears to have put him inside the room.
Whether UUTKNS treats gazettal itself as a condition of the proclamation’s validity is a separate question, and this essay does not assert an answer either way.
The statement does not point to the provision that would settle it.
This essay has searched for it too, in UUTKNS’s own text, and has not found it either.
A shelter for the man in the middle
Somewhere in Wisma Negeri, more than one officer is caught between the Executive Council’s resolution and his own legal adviser’s advice.
That officer is not choosing between right and wrong.
He is choosing between two men, each said to be the rightful Ruling Chief, in a dispute Article 71 keeps away from the ordinary courts.
The law does not leave him defenceless for guessing wrong.
An officer genuinely unsure which of two competing directions to follow may ask the High Court for directions on his own narrower, practical duty — not for a ruling on who holds the throne, which is not the court’s to give yet.
That protection exists for a reason.
A state cannot be well-run by officers too frightened of a later punishment to use their own judgment today.
The open question
Strip away the four grounds of alleged misconduct, and the statement’s real claim is a large one.
It says the Executive Council of the day may decide, by its own vote, a question the Constitution has handed to somebody else.
That is not a small thing to ask a reader to accept in passing, on the strength of a press release.
Whether the proclamation itself is valid remains for the authorities Article 71 names, and, if it comes to that, for a court.
It is not settled by anybody’s vote — least of all the vote of the side that wants to win.
∞§∞
This article is for general information only and is not legal or technical advice. Seek independent legal advice where appropriate.
Thanks to KN Geetha, TP Vaani, JN Lheela and Lydia Jaynthi of GK Legal, and Patrycja Jadach of Unsplash for the image. Claude (Anthropic) assisted with drafting and Perplexity Pro with fact-checking; the author is solely responsible for all views and errors.
© GK Ganesan Kasinathan. All rights reserved. No part of this site’s content may be used without prior written permission: gk@gkganesan.com.
