Civil court bins woman’s bid to leave Islam, return to Christianity

 

The Penang High Court has denied a 57-year-old Muslim converts bid to leave Islam and return to her original Christian faith.

According to the full grounds of the June 26 decision by judge Quay Chew Soon that was made available this week, she was born on Jan 7, 1966, to Christian parents and was baptised as an infant and raised - believing and practising in the religion.

Then when she was aged 29 on March 30, 1995, before the Penang Islamic Religious Department (Jaip), she converted to Islam and adopted a Muslim name, whereby she averred doing so not out of belief but rather to marry a Muslim man.

She then married the man on July 9, 1995, and sired three children who were raised as Muslims. However, the marriage only lasted 18 years and ended in divorce on Jan 16, 2013.

Counselling sessions

Having affirmed a statutory declaration that she always practised Christianity, she went to the Selangor Syariah High Court on March 22, 2016, to renounce Islam.

However, despite having gone through a year-long Syariah-directed 12 counselling sessions with an ustaz and her testifying in court on her beliefs and lifestyle as well as calling a bishop to testify on her behalf, the Selangor Syariah High Court dismissed her renunciation bid on July 23, 2020, and ordered her to undergo further 60 days of counselling sessions.

Following the Selangor Syariah Appeal Court denying her appeal, she then resorted to the Penang civil court in April this year.

In his ruling, Quay ruled that the civil court has no power to hear this matter as Article 121(1A) of the Federal Constitution grants the Syariah Court exclusive jurisdiction to hear matters pertaining to renunciation and other aspects of the Islamic faith.

“It is not difficult to understand the reasoning behind vesting the jurisdiction in the Syariah courts in respect of conversion out of Islam.

“Since the issue of conversion, be it into or out of Islam, concerns the principles of the Islamic faith and creed, it necessitates the determination to be made by those who are truly knowledgeable and understand the religion to its depths.

“This has been reiterated by the courts time and again,” Quay said.

Filed an appeal

The judge pointed out that the Syariah court’s jurisdiction over the woman remains “until the applicant has been legally declared as no longer a Muslim”.

The woman’s legal team from law firm Kanesalingam & Co has since filed an appeal to the Court of Appeal.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers acted for the federal government, which is one of the seven respondents in the matter.

The other six respondents are the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (Mais), the Selangor Appeal Court, the Selangor state government, the Penang Islamic Religious Welfare Department, the Penang state government, and the National Registration Department (NRD). - Mkini