Apex court affirms decision to award custody of children to Buddhist father

KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Court today dismissed a leave application filed by a Muslim mother to challenge a lower court’s decision to grant custody of her two children to their Buddhist father.

Lawyer Rohani Ibrahim, appearing for the mother, who is a Muslim convert, said the panel, chaired by Federal Court judge Mohd Zawawi Salleh, ruled that the questions of law posed by her were not sustainable.

“The court also ordered us to pay cost of RM10,000.” she added.

Other judges on the panel were Abdul Rahman Sebli and Hasnah Mohammed Hashim.

The mother, who cannot be named for legal reasons, posed legal questions related to provisions under the Law Reform Act (Marriage and Divorce) Act that talks about children’s wishes as to who they want to live with.

She also wanted the court to determine if the presumption that it was best for children below seven years old to be with their mother ought to be negated due to an act of criminal force by the mother against the father.

It was earlier mentioned in the Court of Appeal that the mother had once assaulted the father with a fork.

Besides Rohani, lawyer Khairul Amin Abdullah also represented the mother. Lawyer Honey Tan appeared for the father.

The Court of Appeal granted custody of the siblings to their father, after finding that the mother had “placed her interest above theirs”, including once leaving a child alone and crying.

The court also noted that the mother had previously breached a High Court consent order, before the start of divorce proceedings.

The mother converted to Islam in December 2015 while she and her then husband were in the midst of divorce proceedings. She converted the siblings in May 2016.

She was awarded full custody of the siblings in April 2018 by the Shah Alam High Court but the Appeals Court reversed the decision last year.

Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who heard the father’s appeal when she was a Court of Appeal judge, said then that the High Court judicial commissioner who had heard the divorce petition had erred in her decision by finding that the father could not take care of his children because he had to manage two companies.

The father had previously sought to challenge his children’s unilateral conversion into Islam by their mother, and the High Court had ruled in his favour to quash the conversion in 2018.

The mother, along with the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) registrar, have filed an appeal over the High Court decision.

The Court of Appeal will hear that appeal on March 16. - FMT