Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Civil courts clawing back rightful jurisdiction?

TMI - Court ruling affirms religious authorities are limited by law


For too long now, some state religious authorities in Malaysia have issued fatwas (opinions) and treated them as immutable regulations that can be imposed at will and without recourse.

Today, the Court of Appeal affirmed that these state religious authorities have no such power when it upheld a lower court's ruling that the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department (Jawi) was wrong in raiding and seizing copies of a controversial book from a Borders bookstore in Kuala Lumpur.

The book, "Allah, Liberty and Love" by Irshad Manji, was seized before a fatwa banning it was issued and, as such, Jawi's actions were deemed illegal and unconstitutional.

A three-man bench led by Datuk Mah Weng Kwai held that Jawi's action against the Borders store manager, Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, was unconstitutional and illegal and said her arrest and prosecution must be quashed.

"Jawi had acted beyond their powers against Nik Rainah (third respondent) and the bookstore," Mah said.


The civil Appeals Court has done a damn good job in taking these religious authorities down a peg or two - high time too when some of their officers have become far too arrogant and too aggressive, believing their actions have been supreme, beyond reproach and beyond accountability.

I also have serious concerns about the quality (or lack of) of the officers those religious authorities recruited as their law enforcers. Recall the Zouk club shame in 2005 which prompted the BBC to report:

... allegations have surfaced about misconduct by Malaysia's religious police during a raid on a top Kuala Lumpur nightclub last month.

More than 100 plainclothes officers from the Federal Territories Islamic Department (JAWI) detained young Muslims at the Zouk nightclub.

Female detainees complained of sexual harassment by officers and the incident has led to a heated debate about the department's future.

Eyewitnesses have now told the BBC that officers assaulted and severely beat members of the club's staff.

The sources also said that non-Muslim patrons, including tourists, who were outside the officers' jurisdiction, also reported being threatened with violence.

"Up to 150 of them came in," one witness said. "They didn't identify themselves, they didn't show any ID cards. They just forced their way in and started pushing people around."

In the days after the raid it emerged that dozens of young women were held for up to 10 hours without access to a toilet, long after male detainees had been released.

A number of women said religious officers ordered them to pose in their nightclub outfits while others were asked lewd questions about their genitalia. [...]

Others, including SI Azhar, were angered by the officers' alleged behaviour.

"If the reports were true, the officers [who] committed those acts were no better than hypocrites, trying to uphold good values of Islam but themselves never follow[ing] it. You have ashamed us fellow Malays and Muslims. Just tell me, how can we encourage non-Muslims to embrace Islam with this kind of attitude?!"

Then 
in 2006, we read in NST about the lustful leery lascivious behaviour of a Jais officer who caught an unfortunate woman for khalwat.

The poor sweetie had gone to Jais office in Gombak the day after her embarrassing encounter with Jais, in a vain hope to 'settle' the case amicably. However, she claimed she got more than she bargained for.

She was molested and forced to perform oral sex on said Jais officer as an inducement to let her off the hook. She also alleged the officer used criminal force to outrage her modesty by caressing her breasts and kissing her on the lips.

So much for these 'warriors' of Islam who had on a number of occasions resorted to violence even on minor infringements such as khalwat - read this. Obviously those officers love to flex their muscles.

And i
t's not just religious authorities like Jawi, Jais, Jakim, etc that's limited by law. Even the syariah courts are.

Syariah courts have jurisdiction over issues such as Muslim family laws and issues related to Islamic observances, for example, fasting where they can fine Muslims eating especially in public during the fasting hours of Ramadan, the fasting month.

Then there's their most favourite, khalwat (as per above case and this and this) and Muslims caught yamseng-ing.

In Kelantan or Kota Baru I heard the Islamic authorities have taken the laws a step further, like making Muslim women wear tudung at risk of being fined if they fail to.

But the bottom line is the maximum penalty syariah courts can dish out is limited and not to the extent of civil courts which could even hand down life imprisonment and capital punishments.

Syariah courts may only pass sentences of not more than three years imprisonment, a fine of up to RM5,000, and/or up to six strokes of the cane.


In recent times, there has been an outrageously presumptuous bulldozing attempt by some (even in BN) to make the syariah courts equal to the civil courts when they (syariah courts) were and are never (equal), and in fact subordinate to the civil courts.

The most recent disgraceful example of this was the IGP ignoring a civil court's order in a child custody case, preferring instead to obey the syariah courts.

While it's understandable Muslims respect the syariah court, the IGP as the chief law enforcer of our nation (and not a layperson) should know which court's directive takes precedence.


I believe part of our societal problems today have been due to the ambiguity over legal jurisdiction caused by far too much politico-religious meddling.  

Time the civil courts claw back their rightful superior jurisdiction and power.

43 comments:

  1. Why these hypocrites are able to hold onto their jobs and some in top positions in their respective departments? How can the IGP function as the IGP of the PDRM and Malaysians as a whole,when he cannot even uphold the law of the land?

    These lawless employees of the taxpayers are able to break the law or acted like sex maniacs,because their watchdogs,the opposition lawmakers,are always fighting and fucking themselves in the backsides,and always in disarray and weak like cripples on a tongkat.

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    1. Lets see how your logic works. Lawless employees are able to break the law or acted like sex maniacs because the IGP cannot uphold the law of the land because the opposition who somehow are now watchdogs but are too busy engaging in anal sex. That sounds about right? Oh STFU.

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    2. So it is because of the Opposition's lack of "dog-watching" that's causing all these Muslims hypocrites to go overboard wanting to make Syariah the supreme law in this country, acting like thugs and perverts ?

      Bruno, oh bruno......if I don't know any better, I'd have thought there's a dog named bruno who somehow managed to learn to use the keyboard to spew such nonsense. Whatever happened to the old bruno who is a (somewhat) thinking human ?

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    3. Oh he has a few bitches which he takes for long walks all the time. Hehehe.

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    4. Btw he uses more than one nick here. So as not to be seen as crowding the comments section. See if you can spot them :)

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  2. the gaffe guy who know's9:44 pm, December 30, 2014

    How about one time when one of the pictures surfaced with the Rela and Khalwat guys forcing the ladies to pee on the roadside watching and taking pictures?

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    1. Yeah....that pic really pisses one off....betul betul celaka punya pervert lah ! Even beruks behave better, much much better.

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  3. The religious thugs are emboldened to act the way they did because they know that they are backed and protected by a certain group some of whose members were just as thuggish until The Maharajah shook his walking-stick at them.

    That's in code. But you, KT, has the key!

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  4. what if the seizure was done after the fatwa, it would be different story right?

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    1. I suppose that would be a logical consequence according to the Appeal Court's judgement which incidentally frowns on authorities arbitrarily exercising their power

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    2. remember the allah case. still wanna whack lky? hey you qualified meh?

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    3. aiyah loooes, lu balik kampung di Sing lah, wakakaka

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  5. Umeeno's worst nightmare.11:42 pm, December 30, 2014

    With these racial and religious extremist taking over,it will be a matter of time before the Arab spring makes our shore their nesting grounds.God bless 'the land of the bolehs'.

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  6. Najib has come home and hit the grounds running.Umno leaders and MCA leaders are showing up at the right places at the right time.

    Where are the Pkr,Dap and Pas leaders.Sleeping and fucking around with their strange partners of convenience.

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    1. back to good old days. kaytee can come home now?

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    2. Hello bruno. One of your bitches aint walking right. What did you do to her you old closet twerker. Hehehe.

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  7. It is a mistake to only see PAS in the continuing Islamisation of Malaysia's institutions.
    In fact , most of the on-going Talibanisation has occurred under UMNO auspices.

    The constitutional amendment 121(A) which gave the framework to this push for separate and equal jurisdiction of Syariah courts was put in place by none other than Mahathir.
    The initial raid in the Borders case may have been the work of Little Napoleons in Jawi, but the Appeal Case was the work of no less than two UMNO .Ministers - Jamil Khir Baharom and Keris Hisham (Home Affairs Minister at the time).
    So don't blame the "extremists" for the Talibanisation of the country. The extremists are the BN/UMNO government that so many give their support.

    Don't get too excited about the Borders case.
    The Court Of Appeals actually ruled on a narrow but important point of law, which is that there is No offence committed until declared so in law. You cannot prosecute anyone retrospectively - that is against natural justice under Common law.

    Up to the point before the Home Ministry's prohibition order, the books were not illegal in Malaysia, and no one could be prosecuted for them.

    Its actually Law 101, which a 1st year University student learns, but Jawi doesn't know or doesn't want to know.


    Ironically this ruling will further push Islamists like Minister Jamil Khir Baharom to speed up the promotion of Syariah courts to separate and full equal status. To these Islamists, it amounts to sacrilege for a case impinging on Islamic matters (as they see it) to be subject to Common Law and even a court presided over by a Cinabeng judge - most unacceptable in their eyes.

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    1. this post is principally about those J-organizations which have gone feral, bullying, arrogant and intrusive. I mentioned the syariah courts in passing with a note on the compulsory wearing of tudung in KB, so it's not so much about PAS. In fact I even said n recent times, there has been an outrageously presumptuous bulldozing attempt by some (even in BN) to make the syariah courts equal to the civil courts, highlighting Jamil Khir's overenthusiastic endeavours - before him there was an equally strong advocate in Minister Zin.

      Your remarks ... a court presided over by a Cinabeng judge - most unacceptable in their eyes. is interesting in that it indirectly throws the supranationalistic Islamic values out of the window, replacing them with ethno-nationalistic emotions (hmmm, what will Allah swt say?)

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    2. what if that zhao zhibao aka chao cibai judge happens to be kt mok himself. lagi shiok

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    3. when comes to syariah law, both sides speak the same language. just ask pak sheikh if he is prepared to substitute syariah court with muslim family one when his dream comes true (but his tongkang has already gone...DAH LAMA DAH). syariah court will stay and the nonsense will continue.

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    4. Kampong,
      Time to listen to this song.

      Kaytee,
      Make sure you dont get heart attack
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRwXrcz-F9M

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    5. how? when I don't believe in god, wakakaka

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  8. Hmmm… very typical of KT to quote the past examples or recalls but by making the flavour of its content more obnoxious, wakakaka… Surely, KT loves to represent that Islam and especially the ‘priesthood caste’ is very much similarly dominated by rabbinic legalism and the pharisaic spirit of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef? Well, what can I say - he may be right. KT is so passionate about religion: I hope he would one day realize that the world has a designer indeed, and KT would find that illuminative wisdom unaided? Wakakaka...

    Nevertheless, generally speaking, Islam indeed does seek its forcible containment and/or elimination of sin/evil, as this has been mentioned in the Qur’an several times. But then again, didn’t the Prophets of the Old Testament confront to the end the tragedy of human evil too?

    However, from my training I would say that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) was not of the aforesaid temper: He did not compel people to come into Islam as there is no compulsion in religion; to you your religion and to me my religion. Muslims and non Muslims live together in peace during his era.

    From KT’s visual in the ‘Divine Wrath’: [She asked: “YOU’RE THE GUY THAT RAPED AND MURDERED ME… HOW DID YOU GET INTO HEAVEN?” He replied: “JUST BEFORE I WAS PUT TO DEATH, I ACCEPTED CHRIST AND BEGGED FOR FORGIVENESS AND POOF… THAT’S ALL IT TOOK.”]

    I wonder! Is that the strength of Christianity? If it is so, doesn’t such flexibility of commitment opens the door to sin and/or perhaps evil? Islam in contrast does not accept such redemption of sin/evil especially when one is at the footsteps of death.

    In Islam the access to Allah and the location for the exercise of Allah’s mercy and forgiveness is in the person of each and every individual. The Muslim house contains a ‘qiblat’ and every Muslim has a direct and immediate relationship with Allah.

    There are many Muslims, the ‘priesthood caste’ inclusive, who adopt spiritual secularism and Sufi resignation, so to speak, for example the Tabligh group. You can see this group at the Sri Petaling mosque.

    Tonight at 9.30 pm there will be an Islamic Night lead by the Indonesian Habib Syech at Dataran Merdeka. Normally, the Tabligh people would not attend such Islamic Nights, but the Sufis and others would. But of course there are also other groups of Muslims who would prefer to celebrate Arabian Nights every night…Wakakaka!

    Anyway, in this Nik Rainah’s case, my preferred method of thinking is to take both sides of a question, seeing the good and the bad of an issue, or to attack two seemingly opposite points of view. Thus, I normally examine the obnoxious content of an issue from the perspective of the right as well as the left. Having said that I think the Court of Appeal was right in its decision.

    - hasan

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    1. To me this conversion of the 31st December End Year / New Year celebrations into "Malam Cinta Rasul" is yet another symptom of the continuing Pakistanization of Malaysia.

      There will only be one sad and painful end result of this - just like Pakistan.

      A country at Independence founded as a modern state based on universal values, a democracy with respect for the rights of All - the Constitution and the Rukunegara - steadily converted into an Islamic Theocracy.

      Tunku Abdul Rahman would be a very sad man if he were still alive today.

      BTW , there is nothing wrong with holding an Islamic-themed gathering, just don't take out the New Year gathering.

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    2. This is what happened when one never stand up for their rights. Worst still people especially kaytee expecting others including Marina to stand up for his rights. Meanwhile you know that Kaytee dictated that all christians should not use Allah for God. Cibai right?

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    3. studied bible for 16 years and have never come across the name 'Allah'

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    4. Forgot to add. For melayu speaking christians. Kaytee, you can talk cocks till cow comes. You have no cibai right of dictating them what name to use for god. In this case, it is allah. Comprende?

      So fuck off! Fuck you!

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    5. R u well versed in non-Muslim native language?

      Have u REALLY studied any native language Bible in yr 16 yrs of biblical investigation?

      So, what cockeroos r u talking about?

      Too much drinks???

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    6. no, I haven't BUT then native language bibles are used by natives in their kampungs and domain. Nothing to do with Peninsula in general, which has been what some Christians are pushing for. Ever heard of Elohim, Yahweh, El Shaddai etc? wakakaka.

      I may talk cockeroos but aren't you talking hornbills wakakaka

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    7. looes the cibai champion, do you know that in your Sing they pray to:

      (a) Kuan Yin the Goddess of Mercy and

      (b) Kuan Yew the God of No Mercy, wakakaka

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    8. KT,
      Have you read the TMI article at http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/seized-orang-asli-hymnbooks-with-allah-a-legacy-of-3-generations ? That Orang Asli group in Johor has been using the word since the 1920's. The Babas of Melaka, Penang and Singapore have their own version printed in 1913. Going further back, our own Malay scholar Munshi Abdullah had help in a Bible/Alkitab translation printed in 1852.

      I cannot blame you for not coming across the word in your Bible studies. I had also not come across that word when I studied Religious Knowledge as a subject in 1965 and since then, I had also not come across that word used by Christians until the word was banned in 2008 for use in the Herald. Then, I also thought that Christians must be crazy to use that word.

      However, I have since researched into the use of the word by Christians and have accepted and even defended the Christians' right to the word. Hope you would one day do the same. Meanwhile, do not get too hot over Looes74 and his C word. I would take it as a term of endearment. Cheers. Adam.

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    9. thanks Adam for your advice - will keep in mind.

      As for looes, no worries, I'm rather fond of that c-fella wakakaka. we have had lots of sparring and I'm only so willing to return in kind, though I don't have any ill feelings or malicious intent towards him, and I also believe neither he me. just our fun with words and platonic insults, wakakaka. Cheers

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  9. If the presiding judge had a name like Ridhuan K Tee Moc bin Abdullah, the Appeals Court judgement may have been seen in a different light, but in this case Judge Mah Weng Kwai sounds almost certainly a non-Muslim.

    The Islamo-facist blogs in the country are already abuzz on the Court of Appeals judgement, objecting to a case touching on Islam and Islamic enforcement agencies being judged under Common Law, and worse, by a Non.

    Ya, there will increasingly louder demands that only the Syariah courts can rule on any matters that touch on Islam.

    Another aspect is that Borders book shop, as a private corporation, is legally a "Non-Muslim" entity, regardless who owns and operates it (though its actually owned by Vincent Tan's Berjaya group).
    Borders should never have been prosecuted relating to a Fatwa in the first place, but Jawi just went ahead anyway.
    Only the Home Ministry's prohibition order can be enforced on a Non-Muslim entity, not a Fatwa.

    Which also raises the doubt .....all those proponents claiming that Islamic laws like Hudud will not impact non-Muslims.......its a matter of time before non-Muslims get entangled with it.

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    1. Ma or Mah is a renowned surname for Chinese Muslims, wakakaka

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    2. Interesting that you brought up the point.

      There has been a large Muslim population in China for centuries.
      However, those Muslims living in regions where they are a minority had found it necessary to Sinicize their names to fit into the wider society.

      Many Chinese Muslims took the surname Mah as an acceptable stand in for the common Arab Muslim name Muhammad.

      One side of my relatives (surname Mah, of course) I was told they were originally Muslims in China, but gave up the practicing religion when they moved to Malaya. Eventually they all ended up as Taoists, Buddhist , Christians or just Agnostics......

      Who knows, maybe we'll become Muslims again someday....

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  10. The Islamic authorities in Malaysia seem to be obsessed with 3Ps, as KTemoc put it in a previous post - Prohibit, Persecute, Punish.

    Its an overemphasis on compulsion, and gives Islam a very negative image.

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  11. Where the F*ck is Anwar Ibrahim ?
    Where the F*ck is Lim Guan Eng ?

    Half the country is flooded and they seem to have disappeared.
    Just Shows you what kind of leadership material or lack of, that they are made from.....

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  12. Its getting to 9 pm Sydney now....you going for the Fireworks ?
    Forget about Bolehland's troubles....you are in the land DOWN UNDER....

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  13. The New Year is heeeere!!! (well, almost)

    So, with an imaginary glass of bubbly in hand, here's wishing you a joy-filled and bountiful 2015!!!

    Disengage your ass from the chair ..... go out ..... get drunk ..... get laid (preferably in Adelaide where Adele got laid, hence the name) ..... and tell us about it. ;-) ENJOY!

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  14. had half a bottle of champers, 3 glasses of chardonnay and 2 small glasses of port with Korean style bar-b-que, wakakaka.

    cheers and happy 2015

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    1. The last time I did something like that - mixing various types of drinks - I ended up with a mother-of-all-hangovers and thought instant death was a better option.

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    2. keep all your drinks on same 'base', grapes as in my case (Champagne, wine and port are all made from grapes). If you mix grapes-based drinks with cereal-based drinks like whiskey or beer, then you'll get that horrible hangover - not all is lost as whiskey (scotch) and beer go well together, wakakaka. Yam Seng

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