Syariah Court allows woman to delete Islam in MyKad
Published on: Thursday, June 30, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: A 40-year-old Roman Catholic who waited seven years for a declaration that she is not Muslim saw her wish being granted by the Syariah High Court, Wednesday.Ervinna Chua Soo Kea @ Ervinna Abdullah's (pic) application was granted by Syariah High Court Judge Nawawi Diman who had presided over the application hearing.Nawawi ruled that he was satisfied that the plaintiff did not fall within the meaning of "Orang Islam" under Section 2 of the Majlis Ugama Islam Negeri Sabah (Muis) 2004 Enactment.
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The court held that based on the evidence adduced during the trial, the plaintiff's religion followed that of her mother's and her father's act of not bringing her together with him when he converted to Islam was enough to prove that her father wanted her to remain in her Christian faith.The court also held that there was undisputed evidence that her grandmother took care of the plaintiff since she was five after her parents divorced. The court ruled that the plaintiff also married a Christian man and there was no evidence that her father was a Muslim when he was living with her prior to the divorce and, likewise, no evidence that he raised her as a Muslim by teaching her to perform the Solat, fasting or others. The court also held that that the plaintiff also did not practise a Muslim life throughout.
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After considering all the evidence, the court allowed Chua's application.The trial commenced on March 29 this year with the plaintiff calling her parents as witnesses and her father as the first witness testified that the plaintiff was never converted to Islam when she was a child.
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He also testified that the plaintiff was at all the times taken care of by her non-Muslim mother and grandmother.Her mother also confirmed her father's testimony that she never converted to Islam.Counsel Hamid Ismail who defended Chua, said his client was born on June 1, 1976 to a Christian family and her father converted to Islam on March 9, 1977 alone without bringing her and her mother for the same purpose."The issue started when she lost her identity card in 2008 where the National Registration Department (NRD) issued her a temporary identity document in which her religion status was clearly stated as Christian."When the said document's period expired, she went to renew it at NRD. However, the department requested her to check with the Sabah Islamic Religious Affairs Department (Jheains) about her religious status because her father's name was Abdullah."NRD then wrote a letter to Jheains about the matter and Jheains confirmed that her name was not listed as a Muslim. Nevertheless, NRD issued a new temporary identity document with the religious status as "Tiada Maklumat." "It was then that she personally filed an application in the Syariah High Court seeking a declaration that she was a non-Muslim on Aug 12, 2009.Unfortunately, the application was dismissed the same day and the Syariah High Court declared that she was a Muslim," he said.Hamid added that dissatisfied with the decision, the plaintiff filed a new application through him on Apr 18, 2011 to reinstate the dismissed application or alternatively to set aside the order dated Aug 12, 2009. "But on Aug 4, 2011, the Syariah High Court advised the plaintiff to withdraw the application and to file an application similar to the dismissed application."She complied with the advice and filed a new application seeking the same declaratory relief on Aug 18, 2011. "Despite the express statement by Muis that it had no objection to the application, the Syariah High Court dismissed the application and the ground of dismissal was that the order dated Aug 12, 2009 was still effective and the plaintiff should have appealed against it. The principle of res judicata applied according to the Syariah High Court," he said. He added that the plaintiff then appealed to the Syariah Court of Appeal which allowed the appeal on Dec 2, 2014 with the application to be tried before a different judge and set aside the order dated Aug 12, 2009.According to Hamid, the case was not the only one in which the Syariah Court has acted to rectify errors as to the religious status in identity documents in Sabah. "On Sept 17, 2014, the Syariah Court of Appeal sitting here, had allowed a man's appeal in a similar application. In that case, the Syariah High Court dismissed the man's application for declaration of status. The Syariah High Court held that the man was a Muslim because his father had converted to Islam when he was nine-years-old. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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