Allah ban: Attorney General misleads – Kim Quek

Attorney General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail's statement dated October 20 defending the Court of Appeal's decision to uphold the ban on the use of the word Allah by non-Muslims is deplorable, as it distorts the judgment while re-iterating the flaws contained therein.

On the allegation of  Allah not being an integral part of Christianity, Gani says in Para 6 of the statement:

"The Court of Appeal also unanimously held that constitutional protection afforded to the practise of one's religion is confined to the religious practice which forms an essential and integral part of the religion. The court held that the use of the word "Allah" in the Malay version of the Herald to refer to God is not an essential or integral part of the religion of Christianity and therefore does not attract the constitutional guarantee under Article 11 of the Federal Constitution."

This statement is vastly different from what Justice Datuk Seri Mohamad Apandi Ali has to say on the same issue.  Apandi said in Para 54 of his judgment: "Since Allah is never an integral part of the faith of the correspondent, it is reasonable to conclude that the intended usage will cause unnecessary confusion within the Islamic community and surely not conducive to the peaceful and harmonious tempo of life in the country".

Clearly, the two make different play of the allegation that Allah is not an integral part of Christianity.   Gani attributes the judge to have stated to the effect that as a result of the word being "non-integral", it has fallen outside the scope of constitutional guarantee of religious freedom, while actually Justice Apandi had only said that due to the word being "non-integral" it would cause confusion and create social unrest and therefore should be banned.

Surely, any literate person can discern the significant difference between the two statements.

What gives the Attorney General the right to alter the substance of the judgment in an apparent attempt to make it appear more palatable?  Will he please answer that?

But the fact remains that, irrespective of how Gani or Apandi had wanted to play with the issue of a word being non-integral to a religion, none of their rationale can withstand the scrutiny of logic.

Allah not integral to Christianity? Baseless!

Religious practice embraces wide and complicated range of human activities and beliefs which only the religion itself is qualified and competent to stipulate and define, all of which are certainly within the scope of Article 11 of the Federal Constitution which says under Clause 3 (a) that "Every religious group has the right to manage its own religious affair".  The word "integral" has no definitive meaning to any religion and certainly indefinable in law, and most definitely cannot be dictated arbitrarily by any judge or attorney general belonging to another religion.

As such, any judicial judgment based on claim that a certain practice is non-integral to a religion cannot stand up in law.

Moreover in this case, it boggles the mind to imagine how a religious practice being non-integral to the religion can cause confusion to Muslims and be a threat to public security.

Contrary to what the judges and the AG would want us to believe, the word Allah has been so ingrained in Christians who use the name to refer to God for centuries that it has become an inseparable part of their religious life the world over, and these Allah-calling Christians certainly include most Malaysian Christians.

With regards to the claim that the home minister's ban on security ground was vindicated by attacks against churches and mosque that took place after the High Court decision to lift the ban (which was well after the minister's order), there was every indication that these were politically motivated hooligans out to create the façade of unrest to justify the ban and to reap political capital from such commotion.

In any case, the correct remedy to such law-breaking provocation is to deal with these hooligans sternly under our laws or in the event of genuine misunderstanding, to educate the misguided.

But to use such dubious incidents to justify in retrospect an act to deprive religious freedom, as perpetrated in this case by the minister, judges and attorney general is most unjust and  an atrocious violation of fundamental liberties guaranteed under Part Two of the Federal Constitution, which are the founding principles upon which this nation came into being.

Ban of Allah confined to Herald?

On another issue regarding the extent of the ban, the Attorney General claims that the ban of Allah is confined to only the Catholic weekly Herald and not extended to Al-Kitab the Malay version of the Bible, quoting panel member Justice Aziz's elaboration on the difference between the two publications.

Justice Aziz said that Al-Kitab is for Christians and used in churches, whereas Herald is a weekly that is also available online, hence assessable by Muslims and non-Muslims.

This attempt to isolate the ban from affecting Al-Kitab is an obvious political manoeuvre to minimise the backlash from Christians in the East Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak, on whose electoral support hinges Umno's political survival.

However, this claim does not gel with Apandi's ruling springing from his interpretation of Article 3 of the Federal Constitution as embodying the mission to "protect the sancitity of Islam" and insulate it against proselytisation.  Such interpetation was derived from Apandi's reading of the alleged hidden meaning in the phrase "other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony" in the same article, of which I had emphatically rebutted as totally unfounded in my earlier article "Allah verdict flawed in law and in fact".

With such understanding of Article 3, coupled with his finding that Allah is not an integral part of Christianity, Apandi proceeded to make his final verdict in the concluding paragraph of his judgment by declaring that the application for judicial review (of the ban in the High Court) "militates against the spirit of 'peaceful and harmonious' co-existence of other religion".

Ban is sweeping, constitution-based

In other words, the court rules that the use of Allah by non-Muslims breaches the Federal Constitution as it encroaches on the sanctity of Islam, besides threatening its existence, and therefore must be prohibited.

Under this over-riding constitutional principle, any non-Muslim publication containing the word Allah or any religious practice considered "non-integral" (which is indefinable) should fall foul of this court ruling, irrespective of the degree of its accessibility to Muslims  (such criteria are naturally arbitrary anyway). 

It is pertinent to note that the Judge relies on religious and theological considerations, rather than public security, to justify his ban on the word.  This is because there is no evidence of threat to public security. Truth be told, Allah has been used by Christians here (as well as elsewhere) from time immemorial without causing even a ripple of anxiety in multi-religious societies.

On the other hand, the minister had opted to cite public security - and not religious grounds - to justify the ban, for the obvious reason that banning on religious consideration may render the order unconstitutional for violating religious freedom.

Hence, we have the embarrassing phenomenon of the executive and the judiciary, while both wanting to be the champions of Islam, have to rationalise their respective decisions on differing grounds.

But why drum up a non-issue in the first place with a legally indefensible ban that would put the government in an awkward position, if it is not a desperate attempt to stir up racial and religious emotions among Malay Muslims in the hope of shoring up its declining electoral support?

Conundrum deepens

And of course, the conundrum of this Allah ban is now further complicated by the Cabinet's directive that East Malaysia is exempted from this ban - motivated by Umno's critical political self-interests, of course.

But wouldn't that be contempt of court, as the judgment clearly allows no such exemption?

And wouldn't that create "1Malaysia, 2Allah" - while Allah in East Malaysia can be worshipped by Christians, Allah in Peninsula cannot be worshipped by Christians? And how do you solve the problem of  East Malaysian flying to Peninsula - at which point must he switch off Allah from his lips and minds to avoid being criminalised in a court of law?

Isn't it obvious that the more these leverages of power - the executive, judges and attorney general - try to defend the indefensible, the deeper the cesspool they have dug to sink themselves in?

What will happen next? Will good sense prevail, or will the current political juggernaut bulldozes its way through - as usual?

* Kim Quek reads The Malaysian Insider.