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KUALA LUMPUR – An attempt by the Perlis Islamic Religious and Malay Customs Council (Maips) to intervene and seek leave to be a party to Loh Siew Hong’s divorce proceedings is an invasion of privacy, the family high court here heard today.
Lawyer A. Srimurugan, representing Loh, said the application by Maips is an abuse of the court process since the divorce has been concluded.
He said the term “interested person(s) seeking to intervene” under the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 should not apply to government agencies such as Maips.
“No one can just walk into the court and say I want to have a say in the children’s upbringing. It has to be someone with a semblance of interest, like an uncle or aunt, if the parents are unable to raise the children.”
He added that the legality of the children’s unilateral conversion by Loh’s former husband remains in question.
Srimurugan also referred to the landmark Federal Court ruling in the Indira Gandhi case, which did away with unilateral conversions, saying the same should be accorded to Loh’s children.
“Maips know this involves a case of a unilateral conversion, and this was not rebutted, and they know the Federal Court decision on Indira Gandhi is binding.
“So, their argument that ‘we intervene because they were already converted’ is illegal; it is premised on an illegal, unconstitutional conduct,” he said at proceedings before judge Evrol Mariette Peters.
Today’s proceedings involve Maips’ application to obtain leave to become party to Loh and her husband’s divorce declaration, citing the need to ensure the proper Islamic upbringing of her three underage children.
Loh’s plight recently made headlines after she was refused permission to meet with her children, whom she had been trying to locate for the past three years since being discharged from hospital.
She had lost contact with the three children while undergoing treatment for injuries purportedly stemming from an abusive marriage with her ex-husband Nagashwaran Muniandy.
It was during this time that Nagashwaran is said to have unilaterally converted the children into Islam in Perlis without Loh’s knowledge, following his own conversion.
After the change of faith, Nagashwaran was convicted and imprisoned for narcotics-related charges.
In February, the high court granted Loh a habeas corpus writ against the unlawful detention of her children and she successfully regained custody of them.
Maips’ lead counsel Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla today argued it is the council’s statutory responsibility to ensure Loh’s converted children receive the aid they require.
He said converted minors are classified as asnaf (eligible recipients of tithes) and can receive aid from zakat contributions, and that these forms of assistance are Maips’ main priorities.
“To put it plainly, the application is to allow the Majlis Agama Islam Perlis to grant zakat to assist the mother to raise the children in the religion they are in now.
“There is interest to dispute the custody rights of the mother,” he said.
Haniff argued that despite Loh’s pending application to strike out the conversion of her children, as it stands, Maips should be allowed to assist in their upbringing according to Islamic beliefs.
“If the court decides to set aside the conversion, then this application will be redundant, but this court cannot deprive Maips of carrying out its statutory duties just because there is a pending leave application,” he said.
The lawyer also submitted that the judgement in Indira Gandhi’s case cannot be applied in its literal sense in today’s hearing, saying that Loh had waived her rights to decide her children’s religion when she allowed them to be registered as Hindus, like their father, at birth.
He said each case would carry its own facts and circumstances and that Maips’ application should be allowed until the dispute on Loh’s children’s conversion has been resolved.
Peters set June 15 to deliver her decision.
“Just as much has been ventilated on the rights of the mother and rights or duties of Maips, for this court, it is in the interest of the child; it is about giving them their rights which they, unfortunately, cannot exercise because they are minors,” she said. – The Vibes, April 29, 2022
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