PUTRAJAYA – The Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) and Selangor government have succeeded in their appeals to reinstate a 37-year-old woman’s conversion to Islam.
In a 2-1 majority decision, the Court of Appeal bench chaired by justice Datuk Yaacob Md Sam today allowed the appeals to set aside the high court decision that nullified the woman’s conversion.
The ruling which was delivered online came from justices Yaacob and Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who decided in favour of the appellants, while justice Datuk P. Ravinthran dissented.
Justice Nazlan said the shariah high court and Shariah Court of Appeal had already decided that the woman is still a Muslim and thus it is a renunciation case which falls under the shariah courts’ jurisdiction.
He said a judicial determination by the shariah courts that a person is still a Muslim, like in the woman’s case, must necessarily mean that she is a Muslim and not one who was never a Muslim.
Justice Nazlan said the civil court had no power of judicial review over the shariah courts, let alone in reversing or departing from any manner, relitigating, unravelling, or going behind the shariah courts’ decision as it is tantamount to an infringement of Article 121(1A) of the federal constitution – which states the civil courts have no jurisdiction over matters that fall under the jurisdiction of shariah courts.
He said the decision of the high court nullifying the shariah courts’ decision is erroneous and cannot be sustained.
On December 12, 2013, the woman filed a summons at the Kuala Lumpur Shariah High Court seeking to renounce Islam but her application was dismissed on August 1, 2017.
Justice Ravinthran, in dismissing MAIS and the Selangor government’s appeals, said that the high court was correct to grant the declaration sought by the woman.
In her originating summons, the woman, who was born a Hindu to a Hindu father and a Buddhist mother in 1986, sought a declaration that she was not a person professing Islam.
She said her mother converted to Islam in 1991 and had also unilaterally converted her, who was turning 5-five-years-old then, at the Selangor Islamic Religious Department’s office, adding that the conversion took place while her parents were in the midst of a divorce, which was finalised in 1992.
In 1993 her mother married a Muslim man while her father died in an accident three years later, she added.
The woman claimed that despite her conversion to Islam, her mother and stepfather allowed her to continue to practise the Hindu faith, adding that she never professed Islam.
The woman then filed a suit in the Shah Alam High Court and succeeded in getting a declaration that she was not a Muslim on April 4 last year.
Lawyers Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla and Majdah Muda represented MAIS while the Selangor government was represented by its legal adviser Datuk Salim Soib @ Hamid.
The woman’s lawyer A. Surendra Ananth told reporters that he received instructions from his client to file leave to appeal in the Federal Court. – Bernama, January 13, 2023
