PUTRAJAYA, May 3 — A 37-year-old woman, who was converted to Islam when she was a child, lost her final bid at the Federal Court to overturn a Court of Appeal decision to reinstate her as a Muslim.
A three-judge panel, comprising Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Federal Court judges Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan and Datuk Abu Bakar Jais, dismissed the woman’s appeal in a 2-1 majority decision.
Abang Iskandar and Abu Bakar voted to dismiss the woman’s appeal.
In the majority decision delivered online, Abang Iskandar said the woman’s case did not fall under the category that she was never a Muslim.
Lim, meanwhile, held that the woman was not a Muslim as her unilateral conversion by her mother was illegal.
The woman said she was born a Hindu to non-Muslim parents, and was converted to Islam as a child by her mother in 1991.
She said her mother married a Muslim man after divorcing her father, and that despite her conversion to Islam, her mother and stepfather allowed her to practise the Hindu faith into which she was born.
On December 12, 2013, the woman filed a summons at the Kuala Lumpur Shariah High Court for a declaration that she was no longer a Muslim. On July 20, 2017, the Shariah High Court dismissed her summons, and on August 1, 2017, the Shariah Court of Appeal similarly dismissed her bid.
She then filed a suit at the civil High Court seeking a declaration that she was not a Muslim, naming the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) and the Selangor government as respondents.
On December 21, 2021, the Shah Alam High Court allowed the woman’s suit and declared she was not a Muslim, but the decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal on January 13 last year in a 2-1 majority decision, following appeals by MAIS and the Selangor government.
The woman was granted leave to proceed with her appeal at the Federal Court on May 23 last year, with six legal questions for the court to determine.
Lawyers Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, A. Surendra Ananth and Wong Ming Yen represented the woman; lawyers Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla and Majdah Muda acted for MAIS; and Selangor state legal adviser Datuk Salim Soib@Hamid and assistant state legal adviser Khairul Nizam Abu Bakar appeared for the Selangor government.
— Bernama
