Earlier, FMT reported that the Federal Court struck down 16 offences prescribed by the Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code (I) Enactment 2019 on the grounds that they are unconstitutional.
Nik Elin Zurina and her daughter Tengku Yasmin Nastasha Tengku Abdul Rahman filed the constitutional challenge in 2022 seeking to question the Kelantan assembly’s authority to pass the enactment.
Asked if she would seek to challenge similar laws in other states, Nik Elin Zurina said “God-willing, no.”
“Hopefully they will be more careful in drafting their legislation,” she told a press conference at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya.
Nik Elin Zurina said she has been “vilified” for challenging the Kelantan enactment but stressed that her duty as a legal practitioner was to protect and defend the sovereignty of the law.
Announcing the 8-1 majority decision earlier, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat said the state assembly had no power to pass the provisions as part of the enactment as the offences in question are already covered under federal law.
The other judges who formed the majority were Court of Appeal president Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, Chief Judge of Malaya Zabidin Diah, and Justices Nallini Pathmanathan, Mary Lim, Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, Nordin Hassan and Abu Bakar Jais.
Meanwhile, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Abdul Rahman Sebli dissented and held that the constitutional challenge brought by Nik Elin Zurina and her daughter Tengku Yasmin Nastasha was an abuse of court process.
In the proceedings, Nik Elin Zurina and Tengku Yasmin Nastasha contended that the power to legislate on criminal matters belongs exclusively to the Dewan Rakyat and that state assemblies can only enact laws related to the Islamic faith.
The 8-member majority on the panel, however, did not strike down the remaining two provisions which were the subject matter of the challenge, namely Sections 13 and 30 of the enactment.
Section 13 deals with selling or giving away children to non-Muslims and morally reprehensible Muslim persons, while Section 30 touches on words capable of breaching the peace.