'Deviant' fatwa: SIS will appeal to Federal Court

 

Sisters in Islam (SIS) will file an appeal at the Federal Court against a ruling that civil courts have no jurisdiction to hear its legal challenge of a 2014 Selangor fatwa labelling the group as “deviant”.

SIS expressed "grave disappointment" with the Court of Appeal's majority decision to affirm the August 2019 High Court ruling that the Selangor Syariah High Court was the proper forum for a judicial review against the fatwa.

The group said it agreed with dissenting judge M Gunalan in that the court was bound by the previous Federal Court decision on the word "profess" meaning "a declaration of faith which is something an artificial or juridical person is incapable of doing".

"The dissenting judge... reiterated and upheld the decision of the Federal Court in 2022 that the fatwa can only be issued and applied to persons who profess the religion of Islam and SIS as an organisation, certainly could not profess the religion as such.

"Based on the oral grounds delivered, SIS is particularly concerned that the majority decision of the Court of Appeal appears to not follow the precedent made at the Federal Court," SIS said in a statement today.

In 2014, the Selangor State Fatwa Committee issued a fatwa against SIS, stating that the group adopted ideologies of liberalism and pluralism, and was thus deviant because such ideologies were against the teaching of Islam.

The Selangor government gazetted the fatwa on July 31 of that year.

The majority decision of the three-member Court of Appeal bench ruled that the Federal Constitution stipulated that any dispute linked to "hukum syarak" was the exclusive jurisdiction of the Syariah Court and not the civil courts.

SIS was formed in 1988 to aid Muslim women in the syariah courts and address their challenges under Islamic family law. - Mkini