The Court of Appeal has set Oct 27 to hear an appeal to reinstate the Islamic conversion of two children locked in a legal tussle between their Buddhist father and their Muslim-convert mother.
Back on March 25, the court vacated the scheduled hearing for that day, after one of the three-person panel judges recused himself on grounds that he knew the formerly married couple.
The Buddhist father’s counsel, Honey Tan, confirmed the new hearing date, which was set during the case management of the Muslim mother’s appeal before the Court of Appeal today.
“The case management went on (today) and the hearing is on Oct 27,” Tan said when contacted by Malaysiakini this afternoon.
During today’s online case management, lawyers Rohani Ibrahim and Sulaiman Abdullah appeared for the two appellants, namely the Muslim-convert mother and the Federal Territory Muallaf Registrar.
Senior federal counsel Mazlifah Ayob, from the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC), was also present.
The mother and the Federal Territory Muallaf Registrar are appealing to reinstate the Islamic conversion certificate of the two children, who are still schooling.
They are appealing against a 2018 order by the High Court in Kuala Lumpur allowing the father’s bid to invalidate the Islamic conversion certificate of the children.
On March 25, Court of Appeal judge Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera recused himself from the three-person panel set to hear the appeal, on grounds that he knew the estranged couple.
This is the second time that the appeal proceedings saw one of the Court of Appeal bench members recusing from the matter.
Back on June 25, 2019, judge Mary Lim Thiam Suan recused herself from the panel, following objections raised by both parties.
Lim was a judge on the bench of both the Court of Appeal and Federal Court that heard the appeals related to the custody of the two children that were filed by the formerly married couple.
The legal battle now centres on validity of the conversion
On Jan 15 last year, the Federal Court dismissed an appeal by the mother against a lower court ruling granting custody to the father.
As a result, the main legal battle now centres on the tussle over the validity of the Islamic conversion certificate of the two children.
Due to an existing court order, the names of the former married couple and the two children are not allowed to be published by the media.
On June 14, 2016, the father, who is a businessperson, filed the judicial review application at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to challenge his former wife's unilateral conversion of their two children, the daughter then aged eight years and the son aged four.
The father asked the court to quash the certificate of conversion and to issue a prohibition order to prevent the respondents (the mother and the Federal Territory Muallaf Registrar) or their agents from registering the two children as Muslims.
In October 2018, the High Court allowed his legal challenge to nullify the Islamic conversion certificates of the children.
The mother and the Federal Territory Muallaf Registrar then appealed to the Court of Appeal. - Mkini
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