Court allows MAIS, Selangor govt's appeals to reinstate woman's conversion to Islam

PUTRAJAYA: The Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) and the Selangor state 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's 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 MAIS and the Selangor state government while Justice Datuk P. Ravinthran dissented.

Justice Mohd Nazlan said the Syariah High Court and the Syariah Court of Appeal had already decided that the woman is still a Muslim and thus it is a renunciation case which falls under the Syariah Courts' jurisdiction.

He said a judicial determination by the Syariah Courts that a person is still a Muslim like in this woman's case, must necessarily mean that she is a Muslim and not one that was never a Muslim.

Justice Mohd Nazlan said the civil court had no power of judicial review over the Syariah Courts, let alone in reversing or departing from any manner, relitigating, unravelling or going behind the Syariah Courts' decision as it is tantamount to an infringement of Article 121 (1A) of the Federal Constitution, that states the civil courts have no jurisdiction over matters that fall under the jurisdiction of Syariah Courts.

He said the decision of the High Court nullifying the Syariah Courts' decision is erroneous and cannot be sustained.

On Dec 12, 2013, the woman filed a summons at the Kuala Lumpur Syariah High Court seeking to renounce Islam but her application for renunciation was dismissed on Aug 1, 2017.

Justice Ravinthran, in dismissing MAIS and the Selangor state 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 the religion of Islam.

She said her mother converted to Islam in 1991 and had also unilaterally converted her, who was turning five years old then, at the Selangor Islamic Religious Department's (JAIS) 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 the religion of Islam.

The woman then filed a suit in the Shah Alam High Court (civil) and succeeded in getting a declaration that she is not a Muslim on April 4, last year.

Lawyers Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla and Majdah Muda represented MAIS while Selangor State legal adviser Datuk Salim Soib@Hamid represented the Selangor state government.

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