Jacqueline Ann Surin writes that the Malaysian state is constitutionally secular, and consequently the courts cannot hand down decisions that force individuals to seek redress in religious courts.
Surin writes:
Because the Constitution is the country's supreme law, as stipulated in Article 4(1), all other laws and powers conferred by law must be constitutionally consistent. Unlike Pakistan's constitution, which states that all laws must be consistent with syariah - as derived from the Quran and the Hadith - our Constitution does not stipulate this. This is what makes our nation a secular one, no matter the kind of rhetoric our politicians resort to. That may be stating the obvious but, sometimes, the obvious needs repeating, especially in the light of the Court of Appeal's majority decision in the R. Subashini case last Tuesday.A Hindu woman was told she had to redress in a divorce case to a Muslim husband through the Syariah Appeal Court. That court is a limited one in Malaysia which is for Islamic shariah law. I cannot find much information on the court itself, there is plenty of commentary about it, but very little information on the tasks it performs. This PDF has some information, but the retard the created the file disabled the ability to copy (cut and paste)information from it, so I cannot reproduce the relevant parts. Essentially the Syariah Courts were present when Malaysia was a British colony and represented, in part, the indigenous legal system. The Syariah court has jurisdiction in proceedings between parties who are muslims in the areas or marriage, divorce, judicial separation, maintenance, children guardianship and wills. Apparently the court has some criminal jurisdiction as well, to hand out punishments for offences committed against Islam by Muslims against the religion such as alcohol consumption, violation of fasting and promiscuity. Which is fine, but it should not be elevated to state sanctioned law. The separation of church and state is an important principle, and the breaking of it in this case means there is a state sanctioned law for non-Muslims and one for Muslims. So it becomes a discriminative legal system. If it was me, I would be ticked off if I was a Muslim as I would have to face an extra court and set of laws. The Syriah Appeal Court probably exists for reasons of history and what was politically achievable when Malaysia formed into a nation-state. Mingling church and state is a bad idea, and the Syriah Appeal Court should not be state sanctioned. Religions can hand out their own rulings, which their followers may follow, but it should not be state law. cam
