Equitable Compensation for Orang Asli Upon Eviction: The Malaysian experience

Abstract

The Malaysian land law provides that the title shall be indefeasible upon registration and security of tenure is guaranteed. However, for the Orang Asli, the Aboriginal Peoples Act 1954 (Act 134) only declares a communal right to the native for them to live and the right to revoke the declaration is vested in the government.  It is now left to the court's decision in case law to decide the fate of the Orang Aslis' rights to land. This article aims to examine the Orang Aslis' land rights and the involuntary resettlement compensation accorded to them by using a doctrinal approach.

Keywords: Registration; Aborigines; Revocation; Compensation

eISSN: 2398-4287© 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians/Africans/Arabians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v7iSI7.3817