Islamic law, Islamic justice

First the former Chief Justice of Malaysia, Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad, shook the legal world by proclaiming that civil law must give way to Islamic law in Malaysia as this is an Islamic country where Islam takes precedence. Now another former Chief Justice, Tun Ahmad Fairuz Abdul Halim, has come out and been equally emphatic that any law in Malaysia that is against Islamic law is void. I do not know if the outgoing Chief Justice, Tun Arifin Zakaria, will join the choir but since he is a religious man, he just might.

I have a few questions for these Chief Justices who are so eager to implement Islamic law in Malaysia:

When they took the oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution, were they thinking of the same Federal Constitution that came into force the year we became independent? Did they read our former Prime Ministers Tunku Abdul Rahman’s and Tun Hussein Onn’s explanation about the nature of our Federal Constitution? Did they know that our Constitution is secular, as was stated clearly in the case of Che Omar Bin Che Soh v Public Prosecutor (1988) 2 MLJ 55? If they did, when did they suddenly realise that they were wrong?

If they had known all along that their understanding was erroneous—that the expression “official religion” was meant to convey the meaning that Malaysia is an Islamic country where all laws must conform to the tenets of Islam—then why did they keep quiet about this until after their retirement? After all, during their time on the bench they could have nullified all the laws that came before them that they deemed unIslamic. There must have been loads of them, because our laws are based on common law; some would say they are based on Christian law. But these judges stayed silent.

If the Justices had their views transformed only recently, then what were the events that led them to clamour for Islamic law now? Are the Justices joining the wave of change initiated by our Prime Minister, who unveiled his grand plan to make everything in Malaysia shariah-compliant? He has, after all, started an index to measure everything we do, whether these acts are in the private or public sphere, to see if they are shariah-compliant. Of course, the PM will never tell us if the Prime Minister’s Office itself is shariah-compliant.
I wonder if this is all a manifestation of an ailment that people generally suffer as they grow older: that when the time to meet our Maker draws near, we suddenly feel insecure about how much good we have accomplished in this life and think we need to build our cache of spiritual brownie points.

I don’t really care what label we  want to put on our laws, but surely they must be capable of carrying out justice. What amazes me is how those who are calling for Islamic law and Islamic justice suddenly become silent about the people who are suffering from grave injustices that this Government has committed. Are they satisfied to seek the right label for our laws and Constitution, and then wait for Islamic justice to just appear from the sky?

Don’t the Justices have anything critical to say about the conduct of our PM? Don’t they find anything wrong about the covering up of the theft of billions of ringgit from public coffers? Don’t they think that it’s wrong and inhumane for the Government to promote an essay-writing contest to depict Lim Kit Siang as racist and anti-Isalm?

Three days ago, I flew 1,900km to Lahad Datu in Sabah to speak to Muslims about why they remain poor when their leaders have grown filthy rich. My permit to speak was cancelled at the last minute. What do the Justices think about such an exercise of power in this Islamic country?
In this life we all can talk about God, heaven and hell, and justice—whether it is Islamic or not. But surely it’s what we do that counts. If we truly care about justice and are in a position to do something, we must fight for justice here and now. Is it so important that we must wait for the right label for our Constitution and for our laws to conform to our own personal views before we stand up for truth, for the poor, for those who died in police custody, and for those unfairly treated by this “Islamic” Government? I am dying to hear from our Justices about the flaws in the system; unless, of course, they see none.

It’s not surprising to see our politicians and some mediocre civil servants take refuge in religion in a bid to make themselves appear relevant and useful to the community. But I was hoping that lawyers, who are generally well-schooled, would not be so gullible as to play the religious card to raise their personal profile.

I would have thought that retired Chief Justices would spend their time writing books on the development of the very laws that gave them position and prestige. They should go to law conferences all over the world to present their papers to distinguished jurists, so the world would have a high opinion of our judiciary. That would be better than denigrating the laws that served them well over the years.

By Zaid Ibrahim