Apex court set to deliver decision in ‘bin Abdullah’ case

The Federal Court had reserved its decision in the ‘bin Abdullah’ case on Nov 14 last year.

PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has fixed Feb 13 to deliver its decision on whether a child born out of wedlock to Muslim parents can bear his father’s surname.

The court registry had informed the parties involved in the ‘bin Abdullah’ case on Thursday that a seven-judge panel will hand out its decision at 9am.

Counsel Nizam Bashir, representing the couple and the son, confirmed he has received the court’s letter.

The panel had heard the government’s appeal on Nov 14 last year and reserved its decision.

The boy was born in 2009 but his birth was only registered two years later under Section 12 of the Births and Deaths Registration Act or BDRA. He was born less than six months after the parents’ marriage, which is considered illegitimate under shariah law.

The parents applied to the National Registration Department (JPN) to register the father’s name on the birth certificate under Section 13 of the BDRA but it carried “bin Abdullah” instead.

JPN refused to substitute it with the father’s name – despite an application made to remove “bin Abdullah” – on the grounds the the child was illegitimate.

This resulted in the parents, whose identity is being withheld, filing an application for a judicial review in the High Court in 2016.

The couple lost their case in the High Court but won their appeal in Court of Appeal. Then appeals court judge Abdul Rahman Sebli, who delivered the judgment, said the JPN director-general’s jurisdiction was a civil one and was confined to determining whether the child’s parents had fulfilled the requirements under the BDRA.

He said the BDRA, being a federal law, covered all illegitimate Muslim or non-Muslim children.

Senior federal counsel Suzana Atan, representing JPN, had told the court the Muslim father’s name cannot be used to register a child’s name under BDRA as the law only allows for a surname.

She said it was also reasonable for the JPN to rely on a fatwa from Johor, where the couple and son reside, to refuse an illegitimate child from carrying the father’s name.

Lawyer K Shanmuga, who also represent the couple and son, had submitted that BRDA did not discriminate between Muslim children or parents.

He said JPN had no business to identify the father as “Abdullah” when both the parents agreed to use the father’s name. The father was identified as “ME” in court papers. -FMT