[UPDATED] Sisters in Islam loses bid to dismiss S’gor govt fatwa labelling it ‘deviant’

KUALA LUMPUR – Muslim women’s rights group Sisters in Islam (SIS) today lost its appeal to dismiss a fatwa by the Selangor government labelling it a “deviant group”.

The Court of Appeal’s three-member bench came to a 2-1 decision today, reported Malaysiakini.

Datuk Has Zanah Mehat, who chaired the bench, and Datuk Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali voted to dismiss the appeal, while Datuk M Gunalan dissented.

In giving his verdict today, Ruzima said fatwa issues are exclusively under the jurisdiction of the shariah court and SIS should have brought its challenge to the Selangor shariah court.

“As the fatwa is linked to the determination of ‘hukum syarak’, any dispute is in the exclusive jurisdiction of the shariah court and not the civil court,” Ruzima was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, in his dissenting ruling, Gunalan disagreed with the majority stance that the Federal Court ruling was mere “obiter” (a judge’s comments or observations, in passing, on a matter arising in a case before him which does not require a decision).

On August 27, 2019, the high court dismissed the judicial review application filed by SIS Forum, its founder Zainah Mahfoozah Anwar and former minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim.

In their application, they are seeking a certiorari order to quash the fatwa prepared by the Selangor Fatwa Committee and gazetted by the Selangor state government declaring that SIS Forum, any individual, as well as groups that adopted the deviant ideologies of liberalism and pluralism, were deviating from the teachings of Islam.

In November last year, SIS Forum’s lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar argued that the fatwa prepared by the Selangor Fatwa Committee was disproportionate and unconstitutional.

The court also heard submissions from lawyer Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar representing the Selangor Fatwa Committee, Yusfarizal Yussoff representing the Selangor Islamic Religious Council and Selangor legal adviser Salim Soib@Hamid representing the Selangor government.

Zainul Rijal argued that the acronym for SIS Forum is Sisters in Islam and by its name, the organisation showed that it has a connection with Islam and the organisation’s founding members, who are directors, are all Muslim women, adding that its activities included matters pertaining to Islamic affairs.

He said SIS Forum has published many of its views and stands on the teaching of Islam under the name of SIS Forum, which the Selangor Fatwa Committee found to contain elements of liberalism and pluralism that went against the teachings of Islam.

Meanwhile, Yusfarizal argued that SIS Forum is not challenging the constitutionality or statutory compliance of the fatwa but their challenge was on the validity of the content of the fatwa, which should be under the shariah court’s jurisdiction and not the civil court. – The Vibes, March 14, 2023