Published: Tuesday November 18, 2008 MYT 1:04:00 PM
Syariah judge: Islam defends everybody
By SIM LEOI LEOI
PUTRAJAYA: Islam does not discriminate against any race or religion so non-Muslims do not have to fear if common law and syariah courts were to be merged as suggested by a former Chief Justice.
Syariah Court Judge and Syariah Judicial Department director-general Datuk Ibrahim Lembut said such fears among non-Muslims were unwarranted.
“Islam will defend everybody. The impression that merging the two court systems will override the rights of the non-Muslims is wrong,” he told reporters after attending the International Seminar on Comparative Law at Marriott Hotel here on Tuesday.
“However, we still have a long way to go before we can merge the two court systems although we have held talks on the possibility of harmonising civil and syariah laws,” he said.
He said Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail had also given his views on the matter during such talks.
Some civil lawyers who had attended these talks had refused to even consider harmonising the laws between the two systems, Ibrahim said when commenting on a statement by MCA legal bureau chairman Datuk Leong Tang Chong.
Leong had said that any merger would subject non-Muslims to syariah jurisdiction on all legal maters, including inter-faith cases relating to marriage and divorce.
On Nov 6 at the Harvard Law School in the United States, retired Chief Justice Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad said that he believed combining the two courts would harmonise common law and syariah law principles in dealing with issues of conflicting laws and jurisdiction.
Earlier Tuesday, Chief Justice Tan Sri Zaki Tun Azmi had said in his speech that the concept of comparative laws was important in the Malaysian context.
This was because Islamic law was important as its presence had become increasingly significant in a dual legal system and that the judiciary would find a mid-way solution to satisfy both the civil and syariah legal systems, he said.
“We will try not to cause conflict and will find an amicable understanding. We foresee that there will be a few more decisions coming,” he said, citing the recent case involving Sulaiman Takrib which had to determine whether a person was a Muslim or not.
He also said that there had been legislation passed by a state assembly on Islam, which led to the question whether this should be effected in civil or syariah courts.
Sulaiman, 59, who is a member of the Ayah Pin deviationist sect, had challenged his prosecution under the Selangor and Terengganu syariah enactments.
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