Something that never happened and never can happen

This article is an imaginary situation. This incident never happened and never can happen in a country like Malaysia. Nevertheless, let us break away from the reality of our miserable lives and allow our imagination to run wild just for once and fantasize just like in a Hollywood movie.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Your Honour, Article 5(3) of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia says: Where a person is arrested he shall be informed as soon as may be of the grounds of his arrest and shall be allowed to consult and be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice.

My client may be regarded as a Muslim, Your Honour, and I stress the word ‘regarded’, as we shall come to that again later, and I am a self-professed atheist, but as Your Honour can clearly see, the Constitution stipulates that my client is allowed to be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice.

Your Honour can’t forbid me from representing my client on the basis of my religion, or in this case my rejection of religion. To do so would be a violation of the Constitution and therefore a breach of my client’s fundamental liberties and civil rights.

This court cannot impose any other laws and rules on my client, religious or otherwise, as Article 4(1) of the Constitution says: This Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation and any law passed after Merdeka Day which is inconsistent with this Constitution shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.

This means, Your Honour, the Constitution reigns supreme and overrides all other laws, especially if those laws were passed after 31st August 1957 and are opposed to and inconsistent with the Constitution.

In this case, Your Honour, this court cannot forbid me from acting for my client based on my religion or non-religion as the Constitution says that my client can be defended by a legal practitioner of his choice and there is no stipulation in the Constitution as to the religion of that practitioner.

Your Honour, Article 5(1) of the Constitution says: No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty save in accordance with law.

This means, Your Honour, the proper laws must be applied and these laws must be consistent with and in compliance to the Constitution and any laws passed after 31st August 1957 that are in violation of the Constitution are void.

In other words, Your Honour, this court cannot move the goalposts, so to speak.

Your Honour, Article 6(1) of the Constitution says: No person shall be held in slavery.

Your Honour, we shall be calling expert witnesses who will testify that religion is a form of slavery and therefore to impose religion on my client is to subject my client to slavery.

Our expert witnesses are renowned psychologists with no less than 40 years experience and who have lectured and written numerous books on the matter. They have also conducted intensive studies to determine that since time immemorial the ruling elite has been using religion to control and imprison the minds of the populace and subject them to mental slavery, which is more effective and dangerous than physical slavery.

Your Honour, Article 8(1) of the Constitution says: All persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law.

Now, my client is being denied this right, Your Honour. He is being brought before this court because he is regarded as a Muslim and has openly professed that he is an atheist who does not believe in the existence of God. However, if he were not regarded as a Muslim he would not have been subjected to this trial.

This means, Your Honour, my client is being prosecuted because of his faith, or in this case his rejection of faith, which also means he is not being treated equal before the law or being given equal protection of the law.

Would someone who is not regarded as a Muslim be subjected to what my client is being subjected to? Would a non-Muslim who rejects his faith be here today? The answer, Your Honour, is no! So this is a violation of Article 8(1) of the Constitution.

If Your Honour were to look at Article 8(2) of the Constitution, it says: Except as expressly authorized by this Constitution, there shall be no discrimination against citizens on the ground only of religion, race, descent or place of birth in any law relating to the acquisition, holding or disposition of property or the establishing or carrying on of any trade, business, profession, vocation or employment.

Your Honour, my client is being discriminated against because of his religion, or rejection of it, and this, again, is a violation of the Constitution.

Your Honour, Article 11(1) of the Constitution says: Every person has the right to profess and practice his religion and, subject to Clause (4), to propagate it.

This means, Your Honour, this court cannot take away the right of my client to believe in whatever he wants to believe in or not believe in whatever he chooses to not believe.

This court may argue that Article 11(4) of the Constitution overrides Article 11(1). Article 11(4) says: State law and in respect of the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Labuan, federal law may control or restrict the propagation of any religious doctrine or belief among persons professing the religion of Islam.

This Article merely talks about propagation, not belief. My client is not propagating anything, especially to persons professing the religion of Islam.

Now, Your Honour, let us go to the laws of Islam, in this case the Quran, the only true guidance for those who profess the religion of Islam.

Chapter 2, verse 256 of the Quran says: Let there be no compulsion in religion.

Your Honour, the Quranic passage, la ikraha fi d-dini, or there is no compulsion in religion, is generally understood to mean that no one should use compulsion against another in matters of faith.

As it is understood here, Your Honour, this statement represents a principle of religious tolerance.

Historically, the People of the Book, that is, the members of the older religions, particularly the Jews and the Christians, were in principle never compelled to accept Islam. They were obliged, while residing in any territory under Islamic domination, only to recognise the supremacy of Muslims and, at the same time, as an external indication of this recognition, to pay a separate tax.

In all other matters they could maintain their inherited beliefs and perform their practices as usual. They were even allowed to establish their own internal administration.

The situation, however, was different for members of the pre-Islamic pagan Arab society. After Islam became established and had extended its power over the whole of Arabia, the pagan Arabs were forcefully compelled to accept Islam. To state it more accurately, they had to choose either to accept Islam or face death in battle against the Muslims.

This regulation was later sanctioned in Islamic law that came long after the death of the Prophet Muhammad.

However, Your Honour, all this stands in open contradiction to the meaning of the Quranic statement: la ikraha fi d-dini. The non-Muslims at that time were clearly compelled to accept Islam unless they preferred to die.

In view of these circumstances we must return to the real meaning of la ikraha fi d-dini. And this, Your Honour, becomes clearer in chapter 10, verse 100 of the Quran, which says: And if thy Lord willed, all who are in the earth would believe together. Wouldst thou compel men until they are believers?

In other words, Your Honour, the Quran says that God could have made all people of the same faith had He wanted to but He purposely did not. And the Quran questions us: Wouldst thou compel men until they are believers?

That means the Quran is asking us whether we are trying to do what God Himself does not do.

Your Honour, in the contemporary world of Islam, the acknowledgement of religious tolerance is well established. And it is made clearer in the Quranic statement: la ikraha fi d-dini.

Your Honour, we must always keep in mind that in many ways the circumstances governing early Islam differed from those of today and that the presuppositions for a general and complete religious tolerance were not given at that time.

And that brings us to my client’s case, Your Honour. Is this court empowered to try my client and impose upon him not only what the Constitution forbids but what the Quran also clearly does not propagate or allow?

Is this court playing God and doing the job of God when the Quran clearly states that God could have made everyone of the same faith if He had wanted to but intentionally did not?

This, Your Honour, will be what the Defence will be raising if this court persists in continuing with this trial and refuses to withdraw the charge of apostasy against my client.