STYMIED BY LINA-JOY PRECEDENT: Clerk loses appeal to remove ‘Islam’ from IC

A clerk failed in her appeal at the Court of Appeal today to quash the National Registration Department's (NRD) decision in rejecting her application to change her name and remove the word “Islam” from her identity card.

A three-member panel chaired by Court of Appeal judge Datuk Linton Albert held that the High Court was correct in dismissing Noraini Soon Mohamed Ivan Soon's judicial review, which she had filed to seek for a certiorari order to quash the NRD's decision.

"We have reached a unanimous decision. Appeal is dismissed. No doubt the appellant (Noraini) was a Muslim and We (the Court of Appeal) are stuck with the Lina Joy (case law authority), " said Albert, who also did not make any order on costs.

In that case, the Federal Court had ruled that the NRD had reasonably imposed a condition requiring Lina, who said to have embraced Christianity, to obtain a certificate of apostasy from the Shariah Court before it proceeds to make the deletion.

The Federal Court, in a majority decision, had rejected Lina Joy's appeal to compel the National Registration Department (NRD) to remove the word Islam from her identity card.

Presiding with Albert in today's proceeding in respect of Noraini's appeal was Court of Appeal judge Justice Datuk Rohana Yusuf and High Court judge Vernon Ong Lam Kiat.

Noraini, 39, was appealing against the decision of a High Court delivered on July 24 last year in dismissing her judicial review application for a certiorari order to quash the decision of the NRD.

She also sought for a mandamus order to compel the NRD to correct her name from Noraini Soon binti Mohamed Ivan to Noraini Soon, as well as to remove the word Islam from her identity card.

Noraini had earlier obtained leave to initiate her judicial review application in which she had named the NRD director-general as respondent.

In her affidavit dated November 22, 2012, she said she wanted to drop the word “Islam” from her identify card because she said she had never embraced Islam and that her religion was mistakenly stated as Islam.

In her birth certificate had stated that her mother whose name is Yap Kui Chun @ Yap Kui Cheen was a Chinese and her father's name was Mohamed Ivan Soon and his race was also stated as Chinese Muslim.

She said she and her mother were Buddhists.

Noraini was represented by lawyer Wong Poh Leng while senior federal counsel Khairul Fazli Kamarudin appeared for the NRD director-general. – Bernama