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Tuesday, January 6, 2015

‘Allah’ ban valid, says religious council in Herald’s bid to appeal

Ten states have passed enactments to stop non-Muslims from using between 18 and 25 words, including 'Allah'. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 6, 2015.Ten states have passed enactments to stop non-Muslims from using between 18 and 25 words, including 'Allah'. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 6, 2015.
State enactments that restrict the propagation of non-Islamic religious beliefs among Muslims are constitutional, the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council said in its affidavit against the Catholic Church's application to challenge the ban on the use of the word "Allah".
That is the crux of the council’s argument against the the church's review application after it failed to get leave to appeal against the ban on using the Arabic word for God in its weekly publication, Herald.
The review application, to be heard by the Federal Court on January 21, is aimed at setting aside the ruling by the apex court's seven-man bench and establish a new panel to re-hear the leave application.
In the affidavit sighted by The Malaysian Insider, Syahrizal said the Court of Appeal, which last year reversed the findings of a High Court, was correct to rule that state legislatures were competent to pass such enactments as it was consistent with Article 11 (4) of the Federal Constitution.
"Section 9 of the enactment was passed to preserve the purity of Islam by controlling the propagation of non-Islamic religious doctrines among Muslim and this was consistent with Article 11 (4)," he said.
Article 11 (4) states that the states, including the Federal Territories, could enact laws to control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrines or beliefs among Muslims.
Ten states, including Selangor, have since 1988 passed enactments (Section 9) to stop non-Muslims from using between 18 and 25 words, one of which is  “Allah”.
In Selangor, those who violated Section 9 could be fined up to RM1,000.
On December 31, 2009, High Court judge Lau Bee Lan allowed the church's judicial review application and lifted the home minister's ban, declaring that the prohibition was illegal, null and void.
She also declared Section 9 of the enactment to be unconstitutional because it exceeded the object of Article 11 (4).
Syahrizal said the Court of Appeal bench had also considered the position of Islam as the official religion of the federation, the freedom of expression and religion, and the right to religious education as provided in the constitution.
He said as such, the Federal Court, in its majority ruling, was right to refuse the church leave to appeal.
The Malaysian Insider understands that the Malacca, Kedah, Selangor and the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association who are parties to the application have also adopted the same line of argument.
The position of Putrajaya, the main respondent, however, is still not known.
The church filed the review application on September 19, about three months after it was denied leave to appeal a Court of Appeal ruling.
Lawyer Benjamin Dawson, a member of the church's legal team, said the review was based on three broad grounds.
The first was that there were certain legal issues which were central to the leave application but were not considered by the Federal Court, such as the scope of Articles 3 and 11 of the Federal Constitution.
Article 3 states that Islam is the official religion of the federation while Article 11 touches on freedom to practise one's religion.
He said the church further contended that the minister's decision to prohibit the use of the word Allah in Herald had also taken into account a theological consideration.
Dawson said the second ground was that the apex court's majority judgment decided on certain legal issues which were not argued nor raised by the parties before the Federal Court or the Court of Appeal, such as the constitutional validity of Section 9 of the Anti-Propagation Enactment.
The third ground is that the Herald's case is one of the most important constitutional cases to come before the apex court, especially where minority rights are concerned.
He added that there existed a public interest factor to support the review application.
The church, led by the then Kuala Lumpur Archdiocese Archbishop Emeritus Murphy Pakiam, had filed a judicial review application in 2009, naming the minister and the government as respondents.
- TMI

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