Federal court rules Syariah court must determine validity of Woman's conversion to Islam

The validity of a female factory worker's conversion to Islam by her late father when she was 15 months old is to be determined by the Syariah Court, the Federal Court ruled, Thursday.

Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria, chairing a five-member panel, said it was necessary for the Syariah Court to first consider whether Siti Hasnah Vangarama Abdullah's conversion in 1983 by her father was valid before the Civil Court could appropriately determine her claim of her alleged conversion in 1989 by a PERKIM officer and the Penang Islamic Religious Council.

He said it was premature at this stage for the Civil Court to entertain Siti Hasnah's application.

Siti Hasnah, 29, who is questioning the validity of her conversion to Islam, had alleged that she was subjected to a religious conversion process to Islam in 1989 at the age of seven years when she was in the Ramakrishnan orphanage.

The mother of three children subsequently filed an application on Dec 23, 2009, at the High Court in Penang seeking to declare that the then PERKIM officer Raimi Abdullah and the Penang Islamic Religious Council had wrongfully caused her to take affirmation of faith to renounce Hinduism and embrace Islam in 1989 when she was seven.

However, the then PERKIM officer Raimi Abdullah and the Penang Islamic Religious Council, whom Siti Hasnah named as defendants in her application, had said records obtained by PERKIM showed that Siti Hasnah, together with her parents and her other siblings, converted to Islam in 1983. Siti Hasnah was one year old then.

The Penang Islamic Religious Council had said that Siti Hasnah went through the process of affirmation of faith in 1989 because certificates of conversion were not issued to the children when their parents converted to Islam.

In the unanimous judgement delivered Thursday, the Federal Court had allowed the appeals brought by Raimi and the Islamic Religious Council to set aside the Court of Appeal's order that the High Court hear Siti Hasnah's matter.

Siti Hasnah was ordered to pay RM10,000 in legal costs each to Raimi and the state Islamic Religious Council.

Justice Arifin said it was the court's view that Siti Hasnah's application could not be decided without first having the Syariah Court to determine the validity of her conversion by her late father in 1983.

"We are of the view that the issue as regards to the validity of Siti Hasnah's conversion in 1983 is a matter strictly within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Syariah Court," he said.

He said it would be highly inappropriate for the Civil Court to determine the validity of the conversion of any person to the religion of Islam as it was strictly a religious issue and as such Civil Courts did not have the jurisdiction by virtue of Article 121A of the Federal Constitution.

Justice Arifin said the Court of Appeal's ruling that Siti Hasnah was never a Muslim and her alleged conversion in 1989 by Raimi and the Penang Islamic Religious Council was unlawful.

He said the Court of Appeal had arrived at its decision on the premise that Siti Hasnah was of Hindu faith and had never embraced Islam prior to 1989 and it (the Court of Appeal) completely ignored the fact that she had been earlier converted to Islam together with her father in 1983.

Justice Arifin said that under the law, the religion of a minor was determined by the parent or guardian, thus Siti Hasnah's father had the right in 1983 to determine her (Siti Hasnah's) religion as she was then a minor.

He said the High Court had rightly struck out Siti Hasnah's application but it erred in ruling that Siti Hasnah was already a Muslim in 1989 due to the earlier conversion allegedly having taken place in 1983.

The Chief Justice said it was not for the High Court judge to determine the validity of Siti Hasnah's conversion in 1983 and that the judge had prejudged the matter.

On Aug 4, 2010, the High Court in Penang had struck out Siti Hasnah's application after it held that the Civil Court did not have the jurisdiction to hear her case, and that her matter was a subject matter exclusively for the Syariah Court.

The Court of Appeal, in January 2012, overturned the High Court decision and remitted the matter to the High Court for determination.

In her affidavit in support of her application, Siti Hasnah claimed that she did not understand the content and the meaning of the words in the "Sijil Akuan Masuk Islam" (conversion certificate) which she had read, recited and signed, adding that at the age of seven years, she did not have any choice but to follow the defendants' orders to recite the "kalimah shahadat".

Her parents had placed her (Siti Hasnah) at the Ramakrishnan orphanage when she was five. She stayed there for a year and a half.

Her mother, R. Latchumy, whose Muslim name is Siti Aisyah Abdullah, died in 1989 and her father, B. Subramaniam, carrying the Muslim name Mohd Yusof Abdullah, died in 2004.

Siti Hasnah married S. Sockalingam, 32, under Hindu customary rites. The couple did not register their marriage.

Source: bernama.com (Mar. 20, 2014)