I am shocked by the call by the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi for Muslim unity to oppose anyone challenging decisions by the National Fatwa Committee, in response to the Court of Appeal ruling that a child conceived out of wedlock can take his or her father’s surname, and that the edict on this by the National Fatwa Committee does not have the force of law.
This is because Zahid is not only challenging the authority of the civil courts to make decisions affecting the life and liberty of Malaysians, but dishonouring his oaths as Deputy Prime Minister and Member of Parliament to “preserve, protect and defend” the Malaysian Constitution.
I want to remind Zahid of Article 4 of the Malaysian Constitution which states clearly and unequivocably that the Malaysian Constitution is the supreme law of Malaysia, and Zahid has taken oath of offices as Member of Parliament and Deputy Prime Minister to “preserve, protect and defend” the Malaysian Constitution.
Zahid should retract his statement which challenges Article 4 of the Malaysian Constitution and he should resign as Deputy Prime Minister and Member of Parliament if he is not prepared to “preserve, protect and defend” the Malaysian Constitution, including Article 4 on the supremacy of the Constitution as the “supreme law” in Malaysia.
Zahid should not take too long to retract his call in his officiating speech at a Hari Raya event with the Malabari community in Selayang on Friday night or tender his resignation as Deputy Prime Minister and Member of Parliament if he is not prepared to honour his oaths of office as DPM and MP to “preserve, protect and defend” the Malaysian Constitution.
Former Federal Court judge Tan Sri Gopal Sri Ram has said that both Zahid and the National Registration Department (NRD) director-general Mohd Yazid Ramli may be looking at serious legal repercussions, including jail time, for their responses to the Court of Appeal’s landmark decision regarding out of wedlock Muslim children.
There is an appeal against the Court of Appeal judgement, but an appeal does not operate as a stay of execution.
The statement by the NRD director-general that the NRD would not abide by the appellate’s court decision pending an appeal is clearly wrong, contumacious and amounts to a willful contempt of court – and the usual punishment for serious and willful contempt is imprisonment.
These are the legal consequences for contempt of the Court of Appeal decision, but Zahid must also answer the political consequences for his contempt for Article 4 of the Malaysian Constutiton and his breaches of his oaths of offices as Deputy Prime Minister and Member of Parliament to “preserve, protect and defend” the Malaysian Constitution.
No other Prime Minister or Deputy Prime Minister had in the past 60 years broken his oaths of office or acted with such contempt of the Malaysian Constitution.
The recent actions of the Najib government are a great cause of concern.
Another case is the ridiculous and illogical ban on the G25 book on “Breaking the Silence –Voices of Moderation: Islam in a Constitutional Democracy”, which marks a break with the policy of the first five Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir and Tun Abdullah, as this is a vote of five against one as the first five Prime Ministers would never have banned the G25 book.
In fact, if we take into account the 10 Deputy Prime Ministers in Malaysia since Merdeka in 1957 (the second-to-sixth PMs together with Tun Ismail, Tun Musa Hitam, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Tun Ghaffar and Zahid himself), the voting would be eight versus two as Ismail, Musa, Anwar and Ghafar would not have supported the ban of the G25 book.
Tun Abdullah had in fact written a foreword for the G25 book, where he endorsed the G25’s call on the current Prime Minister to “exercise his leadership and to demonstrate the political will to establish an inclusive consultative committee to find solutions to the intractable problems that had been allowed to fester for far too long”.
But Tun Abdullah’s hopes that the G25 book “would further encourage an informed and rational dialogue on the ways Islam is used as a source of public law and policy in multi-racial and multi-religious Malaysia, yet within the letter and spirit of the Federal Constitution and the spirit of Rukun Negara” have proved futile, as the whole book had been banned without spelling out the reasons for the illogical and ridiculous ban.
The ban on the G25 book is doubly illogical and ridiculous when it is the current Prime Minister himself who launched the international initiative of a Global Movement of Moderates! Why is the PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang, having increasing influence on Najib’s government on Islamic matters?
It would be interesting to know the stand of the GMM on the ban of the G25 book?
Was the GMM consulted before the G25 book was banned, does the GMM agree with the ban, or will the G25 lead a national campaign on behalf of moderates to demand the ridiculous and illogical ban to be lifted?
This book produced by G25 represents the concerns of former high-ranking Malay/Muslim civil servants, civic leaders and politicians who want a rational dialogue on the position of Islam in a constitutional democracy as they are deeply disturbed over developments regarding race relations, Islam and extremist behaviour in Malaysia.
Have the lurch towards intolerance, extremism and bigotry in Malaysia reached such serious straits that contributors to the G25 book, which include prominent Malay-Muslim former senior civil servants, professionals and civil society leaders like Dr. Asiah Abu Samah, Dr. Asma Abdullah, Tan Sri Mohd Sheriff bin Mohd Kassim, Dr. Shad Saleem Faruqi, Dr. Syed Farid Alatas, Dr. Azmi Sharom, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, Dr. Maszlee Malik, Zainah Anwar, Aston Paiva, Fawza Sabila Faudzi, Firdaus Husni, Mohamad Afif bin Daud, Dr. Mohd Azizuddin Mohd Sani, Dr. Mohamad Nawab Osman, Nizam Bashir, Ranita Hussein, Rosli Dahlan, Shazal Yusuf Zain are viewed with suspicion by the religious bureaucracy in Putrajaya?
(Media Conference Statement in Parliament on Monday, 31st July 2017 at 3 pm)