Only fools talk about hudud in Malaysia, says Umno minister

Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz is the first Umno minister to state frankly that any bill seeking to give Shariah courts the jurisdiction to hear criminal cases will not succeed as it requires a two-thirds majority in Parliament. – The Malaysian Insider pic, March 23, 2015.Hudud is unsuitable for Malaysia and those who discuss it are fools, former de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said today, becoming the first Umno minister to openly dismiss the implementation of the Islamic penal code in Kelantan.

Nazri, who is now Tourism Minister, said hudud could only be implemented by amending the Federal Constitution and this would require two-thirds of legislators in Parliament to support it.

"No need to discuss something that will not happen. It's stupid for anyone to even be discussing hudud," he told reporters in the Parliament lobby today.

He was referring to the PAS-controlled Kelantan government's effort to implement hudud in the state, a move which his own party has yet to make an open stand on.

The Federal Constitution is clear that the jurisdiction on criminal punishments lay with the civil courts and not the Shariah courts.

"Have we ever seen the Shariah court hear a case on murder or theft?

"If we want to abolish the provision that places criminal punishments under the civil courts, we will need a two-thirds majority in Parliament, but we don't have that now," he said.

Nazi added that in hudud, which involved views on religion, the parliamentary whip system could not be used.

"MPs will vote according to their beliefs and conscience," he said.

"It will not happen because of the constitution. Even if Umno wanted to do it, Umno knows it cannot be done."

Umno, the lead Malay party in the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, is being pressured by the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) to state whether it supports Kelantan PAS's plan to enforce hudud in the state. Both Umno and PAS are arch-rivals in vying for the Malay-Muslim vote.

Twelve of Umno's state assemblymen in Kelantan last week voted in support of the state's Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II 1993 (Amendment 2015), which the legislative assembly passed unanimously. So did the lone PKR state assemblyman.

At the Federal level, however, the party led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has been silent on whether it supported the move, and whether it will back a private member's bill in Parliament to amend a federal law to allow hudud to be implemented.

Umno's partner, the multiracial Gerakan party, is suing the Kelantan state government over the code and challenging its constitutionality.

The opposition PKR and DAP, meanwhile, say that Umno's goading of PR parties' inability to resolve the hudud issue with PAS is a ploy to destroy the opposition pact.

The only Umno minister so far to have appeared giving tacit support to hudud in Kelantan is the minister in charge of Islamic affairs Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom, who last year said that Putrajaya would work with any state government to implement hudud, and recently said he would support a private member's bill on the matter if it was brought to Parliament.

Nazri today said that the private member's bill that PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang intends to table will not be debated, since such bills are not raised until all government business in the Parliament's agenda is completed.

"A private member's bill will only be debated after government business is settled. As long as this agenda is not cleared, we will not get around to it," said the Padang Rengas MP, who was also once the minister overseeing parliamentary affairs.

Hadi on March 18 informed the Parliament secretariat of his intention to table a private member's bill in the current sitting to amend the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 which governs the scope of punishments meted out by the Shariah courts.

Law minister Nancy Shukri, however, recently said Hadi's bill was unlikely to be raised as the agenda for the current session was already full.

- TMI