YOURSAY | ‘Passing new laws or amending old ones cannot proceed without the royal assent of the Agong.’

Lawyer: Govt only needs 24 hours to amend laws on ‘Allah’ usage

Gerard Lourdesamy: What kind of statement is this by lawyer Haniff Khatri? Most states have laws to prohibit the use of the word Allah and many other Arabic words by non-Muslims.

These state laws were not nullified by the High Court in the Jill Ireland decision. Therefore, they can still be enforced by the states concerned.

As Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, all proposed amendments to the current regulations will be presented to the Malay Rulers Council during its next sitting in July.

So why pre-empt the rulers? Passing new laws or amending old ones cannot proceed without the royal assent of the Agong.

This issue is being politicised by irresponsible persons including Muslim converts to simply provoke and incite the Malays before the six state elections.

Man on the Silver Mountain: The basic concept is nobody owns the word. Thus, it is a matter of the usage of the word, like we can use Latin or Sanskrit words to express ourselves even though it is not our own, regardless of how we want the meaning to be.

This is a quarrel over whose word it is. Word has no copyright; anyone can use it as if you plucked it from a free words bank.

Secondly, how will the government police what words respective worshippers are using? For that, they have to attend church services. And then what?

The original issue was proselytisation by Christians among Muslims with the goal to convert them to Christianity. This is against the law in Malaysia which can be dealt with clearly.

Then instead of teaching Muslims that the usage of Allah by Christians did not mean the same definition, the Islamic authority simply banned Christians from using the words.

However, banning was wrong from a legal viewpoint, and rightly so. It’s ultra vires the Federal Constitution that guarantees freedom of religions other than Islam, the religion of the Federation.

The proselytisation of Muslims is wrong by law but banning words to be used by non-Muslims is also wrong. Enacting law to enforce it is against the spirit of the Federal Constitution.

As Malaysians, we must ensure that any authority or the government does not simply enact laws to suit their whims and fancy.

Otherwise, if such action is allowed, what other unreasonable demands will follow in the future? So, this is not a small matter.

Constitutional supremacy: Haniff’s stance that the law can be amended in 24 hours is devoid of merit. Even the attorney-general will need a few months to study the implications of any amendments.

Presently section 9 of state enactments which were made under Article 11(4) which ban the usage of Allah and between 20 to 40 other words are void and unconstitutional. They are ultra vires the article which they were made.

Any amendments which would take the rights of non-Muslims away will lead to constitutional challenges. The Allah word is pre-Islam and is an Arabic word for the one Almighty that made all the creation and is known by different names by different religions.

Vijay47: Seeing the unholy haste with which this “lawyer” jumped onto the bandwagon, I was first thinking of including in my comment references to certain opportunist beings often encountered in the gorier episodes of National Geographic.

But realising that the Malaysiakini censor would be in alert attendance, I decided that restraint is the better option.

True to his established self, this defender of spiritual vocabulary suggests that laws can be passed “within 24 hours” to prevent discriminatory, unfair, and ridiculous matters from being challenged by others, not of the favoured class.

Yeah sure, change the laws, appoint the referee, shift the goalposts, and you might walk away with the World Cup and the Olympic Gold. Heck, you might even beat Singapore in the SEA Games!

What makes my lips curl in contempt is his fear that “the federal and state authorities would be hindered from carrying out their duties over the ‘Allah’ usage.”

What duties and what hindrance would that be? The only prevention in respect of the usage of the “Allah” word would be that punishment cannot be exacted on those who believe this reference to their God has been their right almost from Garden of Eden times.

What irony, what shame, that even in matters relating to religion, such viciousness can be displayed.

LimeSinga1592: This idea of exclusiveness is not practised in the rest of the world including from where the religion originated.

Need time to ensure that it does not encroach rights of people who have been using this term for a long time including the Sikhs and Sarawakians living in peninsular Malaysia and people from the rest of the world who don’t have such copyrighted law in place.

Yes, it may require only half a minute to sign it into law, but a thinking organisation under the Madani government has the responsibility to look at all the above and more before pandering to the incitement being done by opposition to gain brownie points to increase their chances of being voted in.

As a responsible government, it should make the stand that in lieu of the noise created by some for the coming election, the decision needs to be postponed until after that so that the world knows the Madani government made the decision rationally and realistically.

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