DAP has urged Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to retract his call siding with a fatwa that prevents a Muslim child born out of wedlock from taking the father’s name, in contravention of a recent landmark decision by the Court of Appeal.

Party national adviser Lim Kit Siang said Zahid had dishonoured his oaths as deputy prime minister and as a member of Parliament to protect and defend the Federal Constitution by saying that anyone who challenged decisions by the National Fatwa Committee should be opposed.

“Zahid should retract his statement, which challenges Article 4 of the Federal Constitution, and he should resign as deputy prime minister and member of Parliament if he is not prepared to ‘preserve, protect and defend’ the constitution, including Article 4 on the supremacy of the constitution as the supreme law in Malaysia,” Lim told reporters at the media room in Parliament today.

Lim said he was “shocked” by Zahid’s remarks because the fatwa or edict did not have the force of law.

He said Zahid was also challenging the authority of the civil courts to make decisions affecting the life and liberty of Malaysians.

Zahid on Saturday backed National Registration Department’s (NRD) appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision to allow a Muslim child conceived before the parent’s marriage the right to bear the father’s name in the birth certificate.

He said the NRD should abide by the fatwa as the case involved Muslims.

Lim also slammed the NRD director-general Mohd Yazid Ramli who said the department would not abide by the appellate court’s decision pending an appeal.

“(This) is clearly wrong, contumacious and amounts to a willful contempt of court – and the usual punishment for serious and willful contempt is imprisonment,” he said.

Lim said recent statements by government leaders and actions by departments bode ill for Malaysia.

“No other prime minister or deputy prime minister had in the past 60 years broken his oath of office or acted with such contempt of the Malaysian constitution.” – July 31, 2017.