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Saturday December 31, 2005

Majority say converts have moral duty to inform family

News analysis by SHAILA KOSHY

THE High Court’s decision that it has no power to decide on S. Kaliammal’s application that her Everest hero husband L/Kpl M. Moorthy is not a Muslim has given rise to debate.

This is not the first time that a case like Moorthy’s has come up before the Appellate and Special Powers Division.

In 1991, then High Court judge Justice Eusoff Chin found himself adjudicating a tussle for the remains of Lee Siew Kee, who had kept silent about his conversion in 1973. The matter started after a colleague alerted the religious authorities following his death in May 1991.

Eusoff ruled that Lee had not been properly converted, was not a Muslim when he died and ordered that the remains be delivered to Lee’s widow.

POWERLESS: Kaliammal (left) and relatives leaving the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Wednesday after the court ruled it has no power to decide on her application. — APpic
Every time a case like this comes up, it puts the legal system into a quandary and throws human relations into turmoil. Things have to change.

Every person has the right to profess the religion of his choice; most Malaysians will not challenge this statement. Neither will they challenge the right of a mature adult to change his religion.

If we believe that religion inspires us to be good and do good, how can one lie or hide the fact of this life-changing episode? It appears to be easier to live a double life, only to be unmasked after one’s death.

International Movement for a Just World president Dr Chandra Muzaffar said converts to any religion owed it to their families to tell them of the move, especially if they were married and had children.

Asking whether Moorthy had been made aware of the consequences of his conversion, Dr Chandra threw in a poser about the religious authorities: “They would have known that Moorthy had a wife by civil marriage.

“Technically speaking, he was committing khalwat or even zina but the authorities put up with it. It’s very disturbing that they would choose to get involved after his death.

“It is very important that those wishing to convert to any religion be made aware of the implications and consequences of their action.

“It should be made an obligation for a person converting to tell the family, unless they were in an extraordinary situation such as the Muslims and Jews during the Spanish Inquisition where they were put to death or exiled if they did not convert.”

He suggested that a clause be included in the conversion certificate of the new Muslim that he would undertake to tell the family.

Citing the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, constitutional lawyer and former Malaysian Bar president Datuk Dr Cyrus Das said such an obligation would run foul of the right to choose one’s religion.

“There might be a moral obligation, but freedom of religion is an integral part of the freedom of conscience. These rights do not require the consent, approval or intercession of any third party,” he said, noting that wives and husbands were separate legal entities.

The family unit, he added, was a social concept and not a legal entity with rights.

Family law lawyer Foo Yet Ngo disagreed, saying that although the family unit was not a legal entity, it carried with it legal consequences for custody and right to property.

She argued that the family was more than a social unit as conversion, especially to Islam, took away the wife's and children’s right to the husband’s property if they did not convert as well.

The High Court had ruled in a few cases in the 1990s that a wife whose husband had converted to Islam was entitled to her husband’s pension if he had not remarried.

But Foo is more supportive of the proposition that it be made a legal obligation for wives in civil marriages to be told if their husbands had converted.

National Unity panel member Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam is in favour of making it a legal obligation to inform the “civil law family” before a conversion takes place.

“Why should anyone be afraid to say they have converted to another religion? Your belief is sacred and you are naturally bound by decency and ethics to inform those nearest and dearest to you,” he said.

“This is a grave threat to national unity and undermines the good work the Government has done and is trying to do.”

Stressing that justice was a basic principle in Islam, Malaysian Interfaith Network chairman Datuk Dr Anwar Fazal agreed that there should be an obligation on converts to inform their spouses as they, too, had rights from the relationship.

He suggested that there be an arbitration tribunal prior to a conversion to resolve all previous arrangements with respect to issue, property and death.

“If we want to have a culture of peace, we need a system of respect in matters of relationships,” said Anwar.

Dr Chandra called on policy makers to rectify the situation, adding that in a dual legal system like that in Malaysia, the courts should not be burdened with cases like this.

“The helplessness of the civil court has gone on for too long. Policy makers must take action,” he said, adding that these cases had an impact on ethnic relations.

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