Court of Appeal reinstates ban on 'Gay is Okay' book

 

The Court of Appeal has restored the Home Ministry’s nationwide ban on the book ‘Gay is Okay: A Christian Perspective’.

A three-person bench - in a split 2-1 decision with the majority verdict by bench chairperson Azizah Nawawi and bench member Wong Kian Kheong - this morning allowed the government’s appeal against a 2022 lower court ruling that allowed the book author’s judicial review to quash the ban.

Bench member M Gunalan delivered the sole dissension to not allow the appeal. In effect, today’s ruling would follow the majority verdict.

In reading out the majority verdict, Wong said the home minister had correctly abided by procedures in imposing the ban under Section 7 of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.

He said the minister was reasonably satisfied that the contents of the book had a risk of being prejudicial to public order.

The majority quorum today looked at the title and contents of the book and were satisfied that they gave the general message that same-sex relations are not forbidden by the Christian religion.

“A reasonable minister can make the decision that this is prejudicial to public order and morality.

“We are satisfied that based on the title and book’s content, a reasonable minister can conclude that there is likelihood of prejudice to public order, morality, and public interest.

“The likelihood of this exists even after seven years (of publication of the book in Sept 2013) there was no untoward incident happening,” Wong said. The impugned ban was imposed in November 2020.

During the hearing before the Court of Appeal, the government’s legal team argued that the ban was in accordance with the law.

The government’s appeal targeted the decision of the High Court in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 22 last year.

No evidence

On that date, the High Court allowed the judicial review - by the book’s author Ngeo Boon Lin as well as publisher Gerakbudaya Enterprise - to lift the ban so that the work could be sold and distributed in Malaysia.

Judge Noorin Badaruddin had also ordered the ministry and the government to pay costs of RM5,000 to the two judicial review applicants.

She ruled that there was no evidence and factual basis for the ministry’s justification for the ban.

She said the ministry and government failed to show there was actual prejudice to public order, even after over seven years that the book had been in publication, thus it followed that the book is unlikely to be prejudicial to public order.

On Feb 17, 2021, the author and publisher filed the judicial review bid, contending the ban was irrational as no untoward incidents were triggered following the book’s publication eight years ago. - Mkini