Speaking to FMT, he said if PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill could be listed as number three in the motion paper, he did not see why the marriage reform bill could not be included.
“They could also be tabling the redelineation proposal to change voting boundaries at this sitting,” he said.
“Why isn’t the government prioritising the marriage reform bill on unilateral conversion?”
The Ipoh Barat MP also asked if Hadi’s private member’s bill and the redelineation proposal were being tabled to increase voters for Barisan Nasional (BN).
He said the boundary changes meant that the majority of rural votes would be in BN’s hands.
Hadi’s proposed amendments to the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act, or Act 355, seeks to raise the maximum punishment on shariah offenders from the current three years’ jail to 30 years, and to impose a fine of up to RM100,000 and 100 strokes of the cane.
Kulasegaran said there was no reason to delay tabling the amendment on unilateral conversion as it would only take about 30 minutes of the Dewan Rakyat’s time.
In February, the Federal Court set aside the unilateral conversion of M Indira Gandhi’s three children to Islam after ruling that any conversion of non-Muslim children must get the consent of both parents.
The bench ruled that a spouse who converts to Islam has no authority to convert his or her minor children without the consent of the non-converting partner from a civil marriage.
In August last year, the government withdrew the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) (Amendment) Act 2016, which aimed to resolve conflicts arising from interfaith custody battles between Muslim and non-Muslim parents.
The amendments included a new provision regarding the religion of the child, with Section 88A(1) stating that if a parent converts to Islam, the religion of the children will remain the same unless both parents agree to their conversion.
The Dewan Rakyat subsequently passed the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) (Amendment) Bill 2017 which is aimed at amending the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 (Act 164).
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Azalina Othman Said said the amendment was to provide room for a non-Muslim couple, where one spouse had converted to Islam, to file a petition for the dissolution of the marriage in the civil courts, either separately or together.
She said this was to prevent any action by either the husband or wife who did not want to terminate the marriage but did not want to bear any responsibility towards the spouse, their children or property.
However, Section 88A(1) was not included in the bill.
Kulasegaran, who is a lawyer, said it would be easier for Parliament to table the bill as the unilateral conversion case had been clearly defined in the Federal Court.
He also said a simple majority was all that was needed to pass the bill and to turn it into law.
Changes in laws is lasting solution to unilateral conversion, say lawyers
Court rules in Indira’s favour, sets aside conversion of children