By Kenneth Tee | The Malay Mail | Malaysia |
KUALA LUMPUR, March 22 — A woman who was unilaterally converted to Islam when she was a child but grew up a Buddhist failed to get the High Court to restore her religious status legally today.
High Court judge Datuk Noorin Badaruddin said it was inappropriate for the civil courts to determine the validity of the conversion of any person, especially whether a person is a Muslim or not, as the matter fell under the jurisdiction of Shariah courts, and cited Article 121 of Federal Constitution to justify her decision.
Noorin also cited documentary evidence submitted in court over the course of hearing on the woman’s legal challenge and pointed out that the administrative procedure for those seeking to leave Islam has to go through the Islamic courts.
“One cannot unilaterally on her own accord, renounce the religion of Islam.
“As much as the applicant has the right to profess and practise the religion of her choice, she is for that matter not deprieved of legal remedy which is available for her to seek her release from Islam.
“The proper channel is the Shariah Court where under Section 61(3)(b)(x) of the Adminstration of the Religion of Islam (State of Selangor) Enactment 2003, the Shariah (High) Court is accorded with the jurisdiction to declare any person being no longer a Muslim.
“Thereafter she can proceed with the request to remove her name from the Registrar of Mualaf and make application to change her name and remove the word Islam from her IC.
“As such, the application by the applicant is dismissed with no order to cost,” the judge said when delivering her judgment of the judicial review via video conference.
Noorin also pointed out that both the woman and her mother did not challenge the conversion to Islam by her biological father at the material time when the applicant was a child.
The judge said the case was compounded by the fact that the applicant did not challenge the conversion after she reached age 18.
In her ruling, Noorin said the woman had been using an identity card with the word “Islam” since 1992 when she was a teenager.
Another identity card, also bearing the word “Islam”, was issued to her when she attained the age of maturity.
“It becomes more detrimental when the applicant herself never challenged the conversion by using the proper and correct legal recourse seeking for her declaration that the conversion is void and illegal when she attained age of 18.
“The challenge was mounted only recently when she was almost 40 years old.
“In best emphasis, it is not this court that can declare the applicant is a Buddhist when the documentary evidence shows she was converted at age of 10.
“The fact remains and I must emphasise, the mother never challenged the applicant conversion at the very material time,” Noorin added.
The woman was represented by Shamsher Singh Thind while senior federal counsel Ahmad Hanir Hambaly @ Arwi appeared for the National Registration Department (NRD) and lawyer Datuk Kamaruzaman Muhammad Arif for the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais).
Now aged 42, the woman, whose name is withheld to protect her privacy, was born in Singapore in 1980 to an ethnic Chinese couple who were both of the Buddhist faith back then.
Read the full story, ‘Civil court tells Malaysian woman unilaterally converted as a minor to go to Shariah Court to remove Islam from MyKad’ (22 March 2022, The Malay Mail), here.
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