Federal court fixes Feb 24 next year to hear church’s leave to appeal application
PUTRAJAYA, Dec 5: The Federal Court has fixed Feb 24 next year to hear the Catholic Church’s application for leave to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s ruling that its weekly publication the Herald is prohibited from using the word “Allah” to refer to God.
Federal Court deputy registrar Nor Aziati Jaafar fixed the date after the case came up for case mangement before her in chambers today.
The lawyer representing the church, S.Selvarajah, told reporters that the respondents in the case — the Home Ministry, the government, six state Islamic religious councils and the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association (MCMA) were opposing to the church’s leave to appeal application.
He said they (the respondents) had been given two weeks to file their affidavits to oppose the leave application.
Meanwhile, lawyer Mohd Tajuddin Abd Razak, representing MCMA, said he was informed by Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP) that they were planning to apply to intervene in the matter.
Selvarajah said the court gave DBP a week to put in their application to intervene, adding that the church was likely to oppose to their (DBP’s) application.
On Oct 14, a three-man bench of the Court of Appeal led by Federal Court judge Datuk Seri Mohamed Apandi Ali unanimously allowed the government s appeal to ban Herald from using the word Allah .
The court had set aside the decision of a High Court in 2009 which had allowed the publication to use of the word Allah .
On Feb 16, 2010, the Roman Catholic church led by Archbishop Murphy Pakiam, filed a judicial review application naming the Home Ministry and the government as respondents, seeking, among others, a declaration that the Home Ministry s decision to prohibit the use of the word Allah in the Herald publication was illegal.
The weekly, published in four languages, has been using the word Allah to refer to God in the Herald Malay-language section, specially to cater for the people in Sabah and Sarawak.
On Dec 31, 2009, the High Court declared the decision by the Home Ministry prohibiting the Herald from using the word Allah was illegal, null and void.
The church filed an application for leave to appeal to the Federal Court on Nov 11, by submitting 26 questions on the Federal Constitution, administrative law as well as the power of the court to allow the Home Minister to ban the use of a theological word.
The constitutional questions framed by the church’s lawyers were to debate on Islam as the religion of the federation, freedom of speech, religion and the right to religious education.
source: BERNAMA
