The Allah word legal saga continues

The Court of Appeal has fixed Aug 22, to hear Roman Catholic Archbishop Murphy Pakiam's (below) application to strike out the government appeal over the use of the word Allah in its Bibles.

The matter came up for case management before the court registrar yesterday.

Should the application fail, the court scheduled Sept 10 to hear the application by the interveners in their appeal.

It is learnt that the basis for the bishop's application is the 10-point solution signed by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in April 2011, where the government allows the use of the Allah word in Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia text.

Lawyers for the Herald weekly argued since this was agreed to by Najib, why then the government's need to appeal?

The Christians especially in East Malaysia, had used Allah in their prayers.

Besides this, the Sikhs also use the word in their prayers.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court had on Dec 31, 2009 ruled that Allah is not for the sole exclusive use for Muslims and the [ban is illegal].

The archbishop had filed the judicial review on Jan 7, 2009 challenging the prohibition of the use of the word Allah in the Heraldpublication.

The Herald is published in four languages namely English, Bahasa Malaysia, Tamil and Mandarin.