Lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, representing G25, said Justice Kamaludin Md Said granted leave for judicial review in chambers for the group of prominent Malays to lift the ban, made under Section 7 of the Printing Presses and Publication Act (PPPA).
“We sought to revoke the Section 7 ban because the Home Minister has no basis to impose the ban that was outside his scope of powers. Also, the ban violated freedom of expression,” he said.
Malik added that it was also wrong of the government not to give G25 a chance to be heard after the book was banned.
“We wrote a letter to them on Aug 14 last year to clarify the ban but they did not reply to us,” he said.
Senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, representing Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi did not object to the leave.
The court fixed the next mention date on Jan 23.
G25’s “Breaking The Silence: Voices of Moderation: Islam in a Constitutional Democracy” was first published on December 2015.
However, the government only imposed the ban in June last year, citing the publication is likely to be prejudicial to public order and likely to alarm public opinion.
The ban was officially gazzetted the following month.
The book, for which former prime minister Abdullah Badawi had written the foreword, discusses the impact of Islamic bureaucracy in Malaysia and its consistency with the provisions of the Federal Constitution.
It also addresses its socio-political dimensions and cultural-economic implications on Malaysian society.