“The judges fully realise that the whole idea of having a court is to dispense justice,” she said in an interview with FMT. “In this case, that is their business, their raison d’etre. But if you deny justice to the appellant, isn’t that in clear violation of her human rights?”

Noor Farida said the judges in effect ruled that Indira’s right to consent to her children’s conversion was irrelevant.

“When you decide that the mother’s consent is irrelevant, that this matter lies under the jurisdiction of the Shariah Court, it means you are robbing her of redress. She has no right of audience before a Shariah Court. The Shariah Court has jurisdiction only over Muslims.

“What is she supposed to do?

“That, to me, is in clear violation of Article 8, which is the fundamental liberties article, enshrined in the Constitution.

“The problem is that it is so clear that the conversion was done without the knowledge of the wife. The wife as a mother and parent is entitled to have her consent obtained.”

The Interpretation Section of the Constitution says that “parent” means “mother and father.” Noor Farida said it was unfortunate that an error in the Malay version had never been corrected. It says “ibu atau bapa,” which means “mother or father.”

She lamented that the Malay version was the one acted upon by the court.

“I was from the AG’s Chambers,” she said. “I’ve also been in the Malay translation division of the AG’s Chambers. All our laws are drafted in English and then translated to Malay. But then they say that the authoritative text is the Malay one.

“The problem is that it’s easy enough to rectify. All they need to do is take it back to the AG’s Chambers and correct the error.”