Labuan

Labuan is an island situated six miles off the north-west coast of Borneo, just outside Brunei Bay, approximately 40 miles from Bandar Seri Begawan. [1, p. 18] Its name derives from the Malay word laboh-an, meaning ‘anchorage’, and it covers an area of 35 square miles, comprising seven islands with a total area of 9,179 hectares. [1, pp. 17–18] Ceded by the Sultan of Brunei to the British Crown in 1846, Labuan has passed through successive phases of colonial administration before becoming a Malaysian Federal Territory in 1984. [1, pp. 23] The island’s most significant contribution to the legal history of the region lies in the Labuan Registration of Titles to Land Ordinance No. 7 of 1849, which constitutes the earliest land registration system in what is now Malaysia. [1, p. 17]

Cession and Colonial Administration

The British interest in Labuan was driven by its strategic position in the South China Sea. Crawford, the Resident of Singapore, noted that the island would be ‘highly advantageous to this country, as a coal-depot for steam-navigation; as a means of suppressing Malayan piracy; as a harbour of refuge for ships disabled in the China Sea; and finally, as a commanding position during a naval war’. [1, p. 19] The cession treaty was signed on 18 December 1846, and was confirmed by the Treaty of Friendship and Commerce of 27 May 1847, whose Article 10 stated that the island was to be possessed ‘in perpetuity and in full sovereignty by Her Majesty’. [1, pp. 23–24]

Labuan was declared a Crown Colony in 1848, with James Brooke appointed as its first Governor. [1, p. 23] However, Brooke, who was simultaneously the Rajah of Sarawak, visited Labuan for only thirty-nine days in total before 1849, and resigned his post in September 1853. [1, p. 35] The island’s primary economic rationale—coal mining—proved a persistent disappointment. The coal that was mined after the cession proved to be of poor quality, and after a succession of failed ventures including the Eastern Archipelago Company (1849), the Labuan Coal Company (1866–69), and the Oriental Coal Company (1869–80), coal mining ceased entirely in 1911. [1, p. 36] Hugh Low observed that the history of British Labuan was ‘a tragi-comedy of gross incompetence and bitter feuding amongst its handful of European inhabitants’. [1, p. 36]

In 1890, administration was transferred to the British North Borneo Chartered Company, and in 1907 Labuan was incorporated into the Straits Settlements. [1, pp. 30–31] During the Japanese occupation from January 1942 to June 1945, the British Resident destroyed administrative documents and currency stock, and the town of Labuan was ‘completely wiped off the face of the island’ during the 1945 bombardment. [1, p. 32] On 16 April 1984, Labuan was ceded to the Malaysian Federal Government by Sabah and proclaimed a Federal Territory. [1, p. 32]

The Land Registration Ordinance of 1849

The Labuan Registration of Titles to Land Ordinance No. 7 of 1849 was passed by the Legislative Council on 16 November 1849, the same day as the companion Labuan Disposal of Land Ordinance No. 6. [1, p. 38] It established a Land Registration Office to register grants and mutations of titles to land, prescribed that all transfers and mutations by succession be entered in a register specifying the number and date of the original grant, the boundaries of the land, and the date and essential particulars of the transaction. [1, p. 38] Section 9 ordained that no instrument of transfer was recognised in evidence as a legal instrument in a court of law unless it had been registered. [1, p. 39] Registration fees were set at two Spanish dollars per grant or mutation, 25 cents for inspection of the register, and one Spanish dollar for a certified extract. [1, p. 39]

The ordinance predates both the Torrens System in Australia (Real Property Act 1858) and the Selangor Registration of Titles Regulation No. IV of 1891, by which W. E. Maxwell is conventionally credited. [1, p. 17] Bashiran Begum and Nor Asiah Mohamad argue that the ordinance was drafted by William Napier, a real estate agent in Singapore, and that it provided for the survey of all land, the accurate definition of boundaries, and the security of title by means of official registration. [1, pp. 38] Nevertheless, the precise legal character of the ordinance remains contested: Mills J held it to be a registration of deeds rather than titles, while G. R. Woodman characterised it as a registration of instruments, and John Gullick argued it was essentially a registration of transfer. [1, pp. 39–42]

Research and Documentation

The legal history of Labuan has been largely neglected in existing land law literature. [1, p. 18] Bashiran Begum and Nor Asiah Mohamad’s 2009 article in the JMBRAS represents the first sustained legal-historical account of the island’s land tenure system, drawing on Colonial Office records, treaty texts compiled by Allen, Stockwell, and Wright, and a range of Straits Settlements and Labuan case law. [1, pp. 45–48] Their central historiographical contribution is the correction of the conventional attribution of Malaysia’s first land registration to Maxwell’s 1891 Selangor regulations, a position first challenged by J. R. Innes and later by Judith Sihombing, neither of whom investigated the matter further. [1, p. 17] The authors note that the destruction of administrative documents during the Japanese occupation has severely limited the available primary sources, and they express the hope that future research will establish a comprehensive legal history of Labuan. [1, pp. 18]

MBRAS Sources

• Bashiran Begum and Nor Asiah Mohamad (2009). Labuan: its legal history and land tenure system. JMBRAS 82: 17–54

References

1. Bashiran Begum and Nor Asiah Mohamad (2009). Labuan: its legal history and land tenure system JMBRAS 82(1): 17–54. Read on JSTOR