KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 23): Malaysia needs standalone climate change legislation to give courts a clearer basis for hearing climate-related cases, said Datuk Gurdial Singh Nijar, a partner at law firm GS Nijar, following the High Court’s dismissal of RimbaWatch’s judicial review application against two ministries.

“We don't have a [standalone] climate law, nor do we have any climate kind of references in related laws like the Environmental Quality Act 1974,” he said during a panel session at Climate Governance Malaysia’s Climate and Law Conference 2026 at the Malaysian Bar Council on Wednesday.

“I've been involved in some of these cases and as a matter of strategic and tactical approach, we have astute references to climate change as a basis because we felt that the judiciary would not be mature enough, if I could use the word without being disparaging, to handle matters relating to climate change," added Gurdial, explaining why lawyers had been cautious about making climate change the central basis of their cases, given their concern about how the courts would handle such arguments.

Matters relating to climate change have typically been reframed in other contexts, such as planning, land use and constitutional law, said Gurdial.

RimbaWatch’s head of legal advocacy Kuberan Hansrajh Kumaresan said the Kuala Lumpur High Court had cited RimbaWatch’s lack of locus standi, or legal standing, as one reason for dismissing its judicial review application. Legal standing refers to the right to bring a case before a court.

The applications challenged decisions made last year by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability (NRES) and the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living (KPDN).

The High Court also found that RimbaWatch’s application lacked a public law element and was speculative and premature. It further held that KPDN was not obliged to investigate every complaint.

“Obviously, [the denial of the judicial review] is slightly disappointing, but we are quite hopeful and we do fully intend to appeal. One point I wanted to make [is also in relation] to what Professor Gurdial said earlier on the locus standi and whether the courts are mature enough [to handle cases related to climate change],” said Kuberan.

“While we’ll have a more detailed press release at some point that all of you can read, there were a variety of brief reasons given in the judges’ oral grounds. We were told written grounds will follow soon.”

On Sept 20 and 28 last year, the environmental watchdog filed complaints with KPDN and NRES, arguing that representations by Shell Malaysia that one of its engine oil products was carbon neutral were misleading and amounted to greenwashing. It was described as the country’s first climate litigation case.

On Sept 30, KPDN responded that the complaint was outside its jurisdiction and should instead be made to NRES. On the same day, NRES responded that the complaint was outside its jurisdiction and should instead be made to KPDN.

RimbaWatch’s primary argument is that the denial of jurisdiction over greenwashing complaints by both KPDN and NRES conflicts with their statutory duties and powers under the Consumer Protection Act 1999 and the Environmental Quality Act 1974.