Can Two Signatures, Months Apart, Remove Negeri’s Ruler? [8/NS]
A paper dated April. A signature added in August, by a man who was not a Menteri Besar in April. Can a constitution be finished in two halves?
Bottom line
A proclamation against Tuanku Muhriz is dated 19 April 2026.
The Menteri Besar in office that day never signed it (YAB Dato’ Seri Utama Haji Aminuddin bin Harun).
A different Menteri Besar signed it in August (YAB Dato’ Haji Ismail bin Haji Lasim).
Ismail was sworn in four months later, before the very Ruler the paper tries to remove.
Before anyone asks who is right in the wider fight, a narrower question comes first.
Can two signatures, months apart, from two men who never held office on the same day, still make one valid document?
Imagine a will.
It needs two witnesses. One signs today.
The other signs four months later — after the man who wrote it has died, and a stranger has moved into his house.
Would any judge call that valid?
Negeri Sembilan is being asked something close to that question, about a very different kind of document.
What we know so far
Dates are important.
On 19 April 2026, the Undang Yang Empat — the four traditional chiefs, acting as electors — signed a proclamation against Tuanku Muhriz.1Reported in the State Executive Council’s own statement of 17 September 2026, as covered in the Malay Mail, ‘Rembau Undang says exco cannot override constitution, DKU ruling on Tuanku Muhriz,’ 17 September 2026, and The Rakyat Post, ‘Negeri Sembilan Throne Dispute Deepens As Exco Recognises Tuanku Nadzaruddin,’ 17 September 2026. The Menteri Besar of the day, Aminuddin Harun, did not sign it.2The Star, ‘Negri royal row: Exco has no say over Ruler’s position, says ex-MB Aminuddin,’ 17 September 2026.
A state election followed on 1 August, inside the sixty-day window Article 56(4) allows.
On 2 August, Ismail Lasim became the new Menteri Besar. He took his oath — before Tuanku Muhriz.3Consistent with the verified chronology already published at 7/NS, ‘Can the Negeri Sembilan Throne Change Hands by Announcement?,’ gkg.legal.
The very next day, Ismail signed the same proclamation.4Malay Mail, ‘Negeri Sembilan MB says he signed proclamation on Tuanku Muhriz under duress, files police report,’ 9 September 2026; BERNAMA, ‘N.Sembilan MB Says “Proclamation” Signed Against Will And Under Duress,’ 9 September 2026. Reports differ on why. Ismail himself says he signed unwillingly, and has filed a police report.5Ibid.
On 14 September, the Dewan Keadilan dan Undang ruled the document defective from the start. No inquiry had been held under Article X(1). Some of the original signatories’ own standing as Undang was itself in doubt. A further paper, circulated on 5 September, was called treasonous under adat and law.6BERNAMA, ‘Tuanku Muhriz Remains Negeri Sembilan Ruler – DKU,’ 17 September 2026; Malay Mail, ‘Negeri Sembilan Dewan Keadilan rules Sept 5 document treasonous, Tuanku Muhriz remains Yang di-Pertuan Besar,’ 14 September 2026.
The State Executive Council took the opposite view.
On 16 and 17 September, it resolved — unanimously, it says — that the proclamation stood, and ordered it gazetted.7The Star, ‘Negri MB Ismail confirms proclamation against Tuanku Muhriz, says exco decided unanimously,’ 17 September 2026.
The Attorney General’s Chambers disagreed the same day, calling the Exco’s move unconstitutional and of no legal effect.8Malaysiakini, ‘AGC: N Sembilan MB, state exco’s decision on Tuanku Muhriz invalid,’ 17 September 2026; FMT, ‘Exco statement on Negeri Sembilan ruler has no legal effect, says AGC,’ 17 September 2026.
None of that is this essay’s business to referee. What can be looked at without taking a side is simpler: the arithmetic of the dates.
What the constitution actually asks for
Article X(2) does not treat one man’s signature as enough. A proclamation asking the Ruler to step down needs two signatures acting together — the Undangs’, and the Menteri Besar’s.
“Jointly” is a demanding word.
It ordinarily means the parties act as one, at a time when each of them actually holds the office the document needs.
Nothing in the text suggests the requirement can be met in instalments — one man in April, a different man in August, each supplying only half.
Look closer at the second signature, and the problem gets sharper.
Ismail Lasim is Menteri Besar because Tuanku Muhriz appointed him, in a swearing-in on 2 August.
The next day, Ismail is asked to sign a paper declaring that the same Tuanku Muhriz never validly held office at all — a man standing on a floor, asked to knock away the post that holds it up.
Whether that difficulty has an answer — by treating Ismail’s own appointment as separate from a later, disputed question about the status of his appointer, or by some other route — is exactly the kind of question this series exists to raise. Not to settle.
Does publishing it change anything?
Some assume that once a decision appears in the Gazette, the argument about how it was reached stops mattering. Malaysian law, following English law before it, has never worked that way.
A decision made without the power, or the process, the law demands is not rescued by publishing it. The House of Lords, in a case called Anisminic, put this bluntly: such a thing is no determination at all.9Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2 AC 147 (HL). Publishing something proves it happened. It does not, by itself, prove it was lawful.
The open question
Strip away the personalities and the politics, and Negeri Sembilan is left with an old problem in a new setting.
Can a document needing two signatures be completed by two different men, months apart, who never held their offices on the same day?
Malaysian law was not written with a ready answer inside it. Nobody expected to need one.
The Exco says the document was completed properly, under Article 10(2).
The Dewan Keadilan dan Undang, and the Attorney General’s Chambers, say it was broken long before August had anything left to add.
No court has yet ruled on any of it.
Can chronology rewrite a constitution?
Or does a document broken at birth stay broken, however many hands are later found to mend it?
That is a question for the courts: not for this essay.
∞§∞
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 Digital Content Writers India of Unsplash.com 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.
