High Court's hot pistacchio?

Once upon a time there was a Muslim man who had a night with a Buddhist woman, wakakaka. Their issue was a sweetie who was named Rosliza Ibrahim. After the nookie, it seems the man berhilang diri, so poor mum had to bring up Rosliza all by herself, in a trying situation which Westerners would call her a single mum.

No doubt Roslina was born out of wedlock, but her mum brought her up all by her (mum's) lonesome self. Do you think the man her mu had a nookie with possesses any right as a father, after 35 years of irresponsible neglect?

Rosliza was raised by mum as a Buddhist because mum was a Buddhist, and indeed sweetie has practised the teachings of Buddhism all of her 35-year old life.

Do you know JAIS or Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor, the organization where one of its officer working a few years ago in Gombak forced a woman caught for naughtiness into a blowjob for that religious officer?

Well, JAIS considers Rosliza as a Muslim, meaning she has to comply with Islamic regulations.

Her lawyer said: “Her Constitutional right to religious freedom and disposition of property are all adversely affected. She cannot go to the Shariah court as, by law, she is not even a Muslim in the first place. Thus there is no question of leaving Islam."

“She won’t be able to get married to a person of her choice.”

Of course if Rosliza is NOT a Muslim, how could she ever leave Islam? Only Muslims can be said or accused of leaving Islam. But alas, JAIS said she is a Muslim. But has JAIS any authority over a Buddhist, to be even able to say that?

As for her lawyer saying she won’t be able to get married to a person of her choice, I presume Rosliza has a non-Muslim in mind - lucky bastard or OTOH, unlucky bastard, at least until her religious status is confirmed by the court as Buddhist.

But MM Online reported much to our disappointment because no clear-cut case was reached for her, that:

In the Court of Appeal today, Rosliza contends that under English common law and substantive Islamic law, an illegitimate child’s natural father has no rights over the child, and therefore her religion should follow her mother’s wishes.

The appellant, who works in the pharmaceutical industry, had last year filed a summons in a Shah Alam High Court, seeking a legal declaration that Islamic laws enacted by Selangor do not apply to her and that Shariah courts do not have jurisdiction over her.

She had provided evidence from Selangor and Federal Territories religious authorities that both she and her mother had never converted into Islam, and there was no record from both authorities that her parents had a Muslim marriage.

Her mother had also provided a statutory declaration confirming that she had never married the appellant’s father, on October 2008, prior to her death on February 2009 and the filing of the case at Shah Alam High Court.

By the by, her lawyer said the whereabouts of Rosliza's father is unknown, the runaway bloke having disappeared for 35 years.

But alas, despite Rosliza appealing to the court, MM ONline reported that: ... the High Court rejected the summons in March this year, speculating that her parents could have entered a Muslim marriage in any other state in Malaysia, or even outside the country.

Hmmm, so the Court of Appeal has resorted to speculation (that the Muslim man could have married Rosliza's mum in a Muslim marriage in another state or even in another country) to avoid what they considered to be a hot pistacchio (the nut being grown in Iran).

In such a case where the religious status of the plaintiff is dodgy, the civil court should decide. Instead the court of Appeal speculated she might possibly be a Muslim afterall - well thanks a lot.

In January 2006 I posted SUHAKAM Chairman: "Civil Court Judges Lack Balls" in which I penned (extracts here - for full post, please refer to my link to post):

On the timidity of the civil courts in interpreting the constitutional rights of the syariah courts in the Moorthy case, the chairman of SUHAKAM, former Attorney-General Abu Talib Othman, the very man who had drafted the contentious Article 121 (1)(A) in 1988, blamed the civil courts for lacking the balls to interpret the provisions according to the intentions of the proponents (BTW, that’s the Mahathir government with Abu Talib as drafter).

He averred that the insertion of Article 121 (1)(A) into the Constitution was never intended to deny or deprive non-Muslims the right to seek justice in a civil court. In fact he saw the only problem being the judges of the civil courts lacking the courage to act further independently of the Executive (ie. PM & Cabinet), that is, with applying the provisions for non-Muslims with initiative, justice and more guts instead of waiting for a nod of some sort from the Prime Minister.

Abu Talib even accused the civil court judges of worrying about their promotional prospects as the possible reason for lacking the courage. He said: “The courts have failed to do so (interpret boldly) for the slightest unreasonable reasons in many cases where Islam is merely seen on the surface.” [...]

Abu Talib said of the Moorthy case, where the widow Kaliammal went to court to stop his Muslim burial, that Article 121 (1)(A) did not take away the rights of non-Muslims. He accused the courts of not interpreting it correctly, and added:

“If the plaintiff [ie. Moorthy’s widow] is not a Muslim, I cannot imagine why the (civil) court can say ‘I don’t have jurisdiction’. If the plaintiff does not profess Islam, there is no reason not to hear the case.”

“The problem here is caused by the court, not by the legislature. Judges are not complying with the constitutional oath they had taken. The courts today are taking the easy way out, either due to incompetence or under threat. Today, our courts are merely courts of statistics not interested in dispensing justice. With sentiments running so high, similar developments could lead to riots.”

Yes sir, and you know what, Rosliza's lawyer informed us: “The High Court did not request for evidence of this from the appellant during the hearing. She was not given an opportunity to be heard on this.”