Prove breach of MA63: Sabah PAS
Published on: Wednesday, May 10, 2017
Kota Kinabalu: Sabah PAS urged the 20 signatories of the open letter opposing the amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act or RUU355 to clearly state how the amendments breached the Malaysia Agreement 1963 and the Federal Constitution."Please tell the public. This is very important because merely saying there would be a breach, without specifying the breached provisions, is misleading," said Sabah PAS Deputy Commissioner II Hamid Ismail in a statement to respond to the letter which was published in the local newspapers.He added that the allegation that RUU35 would introduce hudud punishments has no merit as the RUU355 merely intends to amend an act of Parliament, namely Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965, which does not apply to non-Muslims, in order to increase the sentencing power of syariah courts.
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This sentencing power, he said will apply to all syariah offences and not just certain offences. "If Parliament allows it, it is up then to the State Assembly in each state to adopt it or not in their respective syariah criminal offences enactments. If a State government chooses to adopt it, it can impose the maximum sentence or not. "Hence, to say that the passing of RUU355 will immediately enable hudud punishments is incorrect," he said.Additionally, Hamid stated that in Sabah, the syariah criminal law is governed by the Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment 1995 and prior to its introduction, the said law was governed by Administration of Muslim Law Enactment 1971 and later Administration of Muslim Law Enactment 1977.
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"The latter enactment contained one hudud offence namely drinking liquor. Later, the Sabah government added two hudud offences in Syariah Criminal Offences Enactment 1995; adultery and qazaf. "Since 1977 until now, no one has ever complained about the three syariah enactments or the three hudud offences. A claim that they have breached MA1963 and Federal Constitution is also unheard of.
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"There has been no religious or racial tension here due to them. Instead, Sabahans have lived in peace and harmony all these years despite the existence of the three hudud offences," he argued.Hamid said he noted that some opponents of RUU355 claimed that RU355 would affect the non-Muslims by giving examples such as the case false registration of non-Muslims as Muslim, conversion and child custody dispute. However, he said such claim is not true because RUU355 is a criminal matter while the examples given are civil matters. "Section 2 of the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) 1965 clearly states that the syariah court has jurisdiction on Muslims only. Therefore, a non-Muslim can never be prosecuted in syariah courts.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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