Ex-CJ slammed for being ‘alarmist’

Zaid Ibrahim says judges should be level-headed even in retirement.

KUALA LUMPUR: Political commentator Zaid Ibrahim today criticised former chief justice Abdul Hamid Mohamad for “outright alarmism” in his reaction to the recent Court of Appeal decision on the rights of transgendered people.

“Judges ought to remain level-headed even in retirement and should not be influenced by extraneous factors, prejudices or their own wild imaginations,” the former law minister said in his latest blog entry.

A Bernama report yesterday quoted Abdul Hamid as saying he feared that the Appeal Court decision would result in the eventual invalidation of Islamic laws, including those that permit Muslim polygamy and outlaw adultery and sodomy.

Zaid accused Abdul Hamid of “dramatising” the possible effects of the decision.

“We would hasten to assure him that none of the civil court judges will approve same-sex marriage applications because it simply isn’t permitted under federal law. Likewise, sodomy is an offence and adultery is an offence for Muslims,” he said.

“In the case of Muslim offences generally, I am sure that civil court judges will not disturb shariah verdicts if there are sufficient witnesses to prove the offence in accordance with Islamic law.”

He said Abdul Hamid, as a former chief justice sworn to uphold the Federal Constitution, should have congratuled the Court of Appeal judges for interpreting the law according to the constitution.

“As a lawyer, Abdul Hamid surely knows that all state laws must conform to the Federal Constitution,” he said. “The areas of the law on which the state can legislate are described in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.”