MALAYSIA is still leaning towards Islamisation of its political and legal systems due to hard-line Islamist bureaucracy and contradictory laws that erode individual rights, legal experts at a law conference said today.

They said the state should have no say in determining how citizens practice or profess their faith.

“Are we a secular state with exceptions to Islam, or are we becoming an Islamic state? Unfortunately, we are moving more towards the latter,” lawyer Lim Heng Seng, who specialises in faith-related legal cases, said at the International Malaysia Law Conference in Kuala Lumpur today. – August 15, 2018.

“Inaction or abdication (of duties) is where infringements occur,” said Lim, who represents Sarawakian Jill Ireland in her judicial review to clarify the use of the word “Allah” by Christians. 

Also speaking was United Nations special rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed; Suri Kempe, an activist with Muslim women’s rights group Musawah; and lawyer Jahabardeen Mohamed Yunoos. 

He said the legislative, executive, and judiciary have been organs unable or unwilling to act decisively on encroachments by religion authorities on individual and group rights.

Lim said although Article 11 of the federal constitution guarantees Malaysians the right to profess their faiths, contradictory laws impinge upon their rights by defining what “profess” means.

“Profess is normally taken to mean how a Christian wears a cross, or the Sikhs a turban,” he said. 

Lim said that however, according to Negeri Sembilan’s Islamic law, a Muslim shall not renounce or be deemed to have renounced Islam unless it is court-sanctioned via a declaration obtained from the shariah high court.

In Sabah, a person who converts to Islam shall be treated as a Muslim into perpetuity, he said.  

Under the Administration of Islam (Selangor) Enactment 2003, a person does not need to profess his Islamic faith or conduct himself as Muslim but would merely need to be born to a Muslim parent to be deemed Muslim.

Lim said current laws meant that Muslims are statutorily determined.

“State enactments prescribe who a Muslim is. Only several co-relate to and is consistent with a person’s constitutional right to profess the religion. Others appear to override his autonomous rights to profess his own religion.”

Lim said there also were cases where they were no judicial remedies involving matters of religion, citing late Mount Everest climber, Sgt M. Moorthy, whose conversion to Islam has been a subject of dispute.

After his death in 2005, Moorthy’s widow had applied for a declaration that he was a Hindu and is not or is no longer a Muslim, after Islamic authorities seized his body and buried him as a Muslim.

In the ensuing case, the federal government did not produce documents relating to Moorthy’s alleged conversion to Islam.

“The high court was well aware that the widow had no access to the shariah court and therefore had come to the civil court. The judge has openly admitted there was no remedy as the widow was not Muslim and had no access to the shariah court.”

Lim said religious freedom is a universal right guaranteed to “everyone” and that citizens should have the freedom from compulsion in matters of religion.

“There should be a distinction between a secular and theocratic state. Do we have equal citizens or diminished half citizens? Non-Muslims are subject to a lot of restrictions too.”

“Is the constitution or the shariah the overarching law of the land?””

“Faith cannot be delegated. Faith cannot be legislated. It is a matter between man and God. The new administration has to recognise all these challenges,” he said.

Meanwhile, lawyer Jahabardeen said Islamisation was the result of the politicisation of issues.

He said it was not the role of the state to not intervene in religious matters and that citizens’ interaction with Islam should be on a personal basis and not through ulamas.

“Muslims need to take Islam for themselves. They need to take it individually. They need to go back to the Quran. No lawyer would think that their interpretation of Islam is the only valid one.” – August 15, 2018.