Lawyers who spoke to FMT said the “Allah” issue must be revisited by the Federal Court, Malaysia’s highest legal authority, as it missed an opportunity in 2014 to make its position known.
The public only had the benefit of a 2013 Court of Appeal verdict to ban the Catholic weekly The Herald from using Allah, the Arabic word for God, in its Bahasa Malaysia content, says lawyer R Kengadharan
In setting aside a 2009 High Court ruling, the Court of Appeal said the reason for the prohibition was to prevent any confusion among the various religions.
It also said national security and public order could be under threat and that the name Allah was not an integral part of the Christian faith and practice.
“This matter should be appealed to prevent a conflicting ruling by another High Court judge should a similar issue arise later,” Kengadharan told FMT.
He said the government as a litigant had every right to appeal to the superior court to get the opinion of a large bench.
Kengadharan said this in response to the government’s decision on Monday to file an appeal against last week’s High Court ruling that Christians can use the word Allah in their educational material.
Judge Noor Bee Ariffin had ruled a Sarawakian Christian, Jill Ireland, had the constitutional right to use and import any publications for her religious education and practise her faith without discrimination.
She also held that a home ministry directive in 1986 to prohibit the use of the words “Allah”, “Baitullah”, “Solat” and “Kaabah” by non-Muslims was illegal and unconstitutional.
The judge said the directive was wrongly issued as it went beyond the aim of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984.
“The law is only to check on undesirable publications. It is not a general law to check on public order, public health and morality,” she said, adding that the ministry had acted unreasonably, illegally and irrationally.
Lawyer Ravi Nekoo said that in 2014, a majority of four judges in the Federal Court had dismissed the church’s application for a judicial review while three others dissented on whether leave should be granted.
He said the following year the church’s application to review the majority ruling was also thrown out on grounds that there was no procedural unfairness in the Federal Court’s earlier decision not to grant leave.
“I believe whoever loses in the Court of Appeal in the present case will go to the apex court to get an opinion on one’s freedom to practice one’s religion,” he said.
Lawyer Jadadish Chandra said the government filed its notice of appeal well within the 30-day deadline to fulfil the strict requirement of the law.
“The Attorney-General’s Chambers has the liberty not to pursue the appeal should it be satisfied with the judge’s written grounds later,” he said.