Sabah PAS disagrees with Goh's referendum idea
Published on: Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah PAS disagreed with MCA Sabah Deputy Chief Datuk Francis Goh's idea to call for a proper referendum for the Muslim community in the country to ascertain if they are really in favour of the proposed amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965. Instead, Sabah PAS Deputy Commissioner II Hamid Ismail said MCA should use the opportunity to debate on the proposed amendments when RUU 355 is tabled in Parliament soon."Perhaps MCA could suggest to the Federal Government to call for a referendum on issues like GST and 1MDB.
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Citizens, irrespective of race and religion, should be asked whether they still want GST to be continued, whether Malaysians want a Royal Commission be set up to investigate the 1MDB issue."Perhaps Sabahans should be asked whether they want a concrete solution to the issue of higher price of goods in Sabah compared to Peninsular Malaysia," he said, in a statement.Hamid also advised Goh to understand that RUU355 has nothing to do with freedom of religion, religious fanaticism and deviation from the original teaching of Islam but merely intends to amend an Act of Parliament, i.e. Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, in order to increase the sentencing power of syariah courts. If Parliament allows it, he said, it is up then to the State Assembly in each state to adopt it or not in their respective syariah criminal offences enactments.
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"In Sabah, we have the Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment 1995. In his statement, I note Goh's fear that hudud would affect the non-Muslim. I propose he read the enactment because it contains three hudud offences.
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"Since its introduction in 1995, there has been no issue about the enactment and those three offences affecting the non-Muslim in Sabah," he said.In his statement, Goh gave the example of rape to argue that hudud would negatively affect the non-Muslim. To this, Hamid said it showed Goh does not understand that in Malaysia, rape is an offence under the Penal Code and tried in the civil court, not under the syariah criminal offences enactment and not tried in the syariah court. He suggested that MCA lawyers advise Goh about the Federal List and State List stated in the Federal Constitution on this matter."On Goh's suggestion that PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang should "perhaps take the lead to show that he can sustain 100 strokes before proposing the Bill", again, I suggest MCA lawyers advise Goh about how our Parliament works in legislating a law," he said.Nevertheless, Hamid said he would give Goh the benefit of the doubt on the issue because he may have not received proper advice and information about RUU355 and the Parliament.Goh, he said, may be ignorant of the fact that RUU355 is in line with the speech of the previous Yang di-Pertuan Agong at the first Parliament meeting in March last year whereby his Highness called for the Syariah courts to be empowered to enable more efficient implementation of Islamic laws. "His Highness even said that he fully supported initiatives to uphold Islam as the religion of the federation, while noting that other religions can be practised freely and peacefully. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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