I have written six other parts ( see links below ) in this series on the same theme of \’Integration with integrity\’. My articles were inspired by Raja Nazrin\’s call to protect and preserve the integrity of our Constitution. To me the issues also deals with our nationality defined by that same Constitution, as the prince so well clarified.
In this last part, based on the Lina Joy case, I argue as my summary that our Constitutional integrity is being regularly denied by careless and zealous decisions of bureaucrats who are not politicians but whose decisions have serious political implications for all of us. All Malaysians who love this country must sit up, take note and understand the issues, before it is too late.
\”I am disappointed that the Federal Court is not able to vindicate a simple but important fundamental right that exists in all persons,\” The Star quoted Lina Joy as saying through her lawyer.
Her \’killjoy\’ is also that of every other Malaysian who believes in the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, and the fundamental and basic human rights protected by Article 11 of the Constitution. That is what Joy explicitly referred to as \’fundamental rights that exist in all persons\’.
Specifically, she means the right of the freedom of conscience or religion or of defining one\’s personal faith. Joy\’s real joy was her faith in Christianity. No law, no government, no authority on earth can deny or take away that personal faith she now embrace. Neither can the earth, moon, stars or the rest of the universe also deny that love she has found.
She went to court only to give testimony to that faith and demand for her fundamental and basic rights under the Constitution. Neither was she being whimsical as suggested by the chief judge, in such poor taste.
Her case was in court to test the artificial limits to personal faith set up by the rules and regulations in our nation. Man has put limits where God has not. She has therefore tested and proven that such limit to freedom does exist in this nation. But they deny her God-given freedoms and her UN-sanctioned freedom of conscience. We are signatory to this Universal Declaration.
But, the fact remains that she is a Christian regardless of the inability to practice her faith in her own country. That denies her dignity and abuses the integrity already guaranteed in the Federal Constitution; which was the social contract and premise of the formation of Malaya and then Malaysia – the nation for which we will celebrate 44 and 50 years of existence soon.
Fundamental denial
Therefore Joy\’s killjoy includes all groups in Malaysia whose basic rights of faith or other related human rights are denied.
Two of her personal basic rights are consequently now denied because of an unfortunate and wrong interpretation of what was originally considered as Islamic personal and family laws under the Syariah rules.
She cannot now marry a person of her choice; a right given to every other Malaysian but not her, and cannot have children in Malaysia because of the new ruling and all its full implications upon her.
The most severe damage is that the highest court of the federation refrained from reviewing that fundamentally wrong precedent of an earlier High Court ruling that \’the civil courts have no jurisdiction in the case of Islamic issues\’.
Article 121 (1A) was never meant or designed to reflect such overarching jurisdiction to include former Muslims; only practicing ones. Ask both the former attorney-general and the former prime minister whose tenures refined the Constitution to clarify matters related to such personal faiths.
Islamic jurisprudence was always only intended to be for personal matters and family laws. There is no compulsion even in Islam. But, our Federal Court judges have now ruled that she is Muslim and will always remain one by edict of the state. She has no freedom to ever decide otherwise. Her God-given human dignity is also therefore denied in Malaysia.
As a Malaysian above 50 years of age, I believe that the original social contract as enshrined in the Federal Constitution is being re-written right before our very own eyes. Much like the revised and now revealed view of the historical mainstream description of May 13, this reinterpretation of Article 121 (1A) of the Federal Constitution to include new non-Muslims until ruled otherwise by the state-based Syariah jurisdiction is a fundamental denial of the basic human right of every legitimate and legal Malayan and Malaysian.
I find the lone dissenting voice of the Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak very telling on this foundational Constitutional issue. This was, really, the very same objection already voiced by the 10 non-Muslim ministers in the cabinet over the Moorthy case. The government and the cabinet must revisit their original memorandum on the subject or face the wrath of their own supporters at the next general election.
Like gerrymandering
This is a critical and fundamental issue that begs the very question of the meaning of Malaysian citizenship and our basic human rights. It is only the Federal Constitution which protects and preserves the rights of all and every Malaysian without exception of race, religion or geographical origin.
But when it denies any one person that right; it denies all of the same. That decision creates a distinction in the type and quality of rights that are accorded to every Malaysian with a definite limitation to Muslims when it comes to faith-based decisions.
Moreover, with this decision and the specific views expressed, the judges have given themselves the very privileges that they have denied Lina Joy – that of the freedom of conscience in making the judgment.
These are the judges who are sworn to protect and preserve the Federal Constitution, but can I now accuse them of having allowed their personal views to cloud their judgment? Their judgment positively denies the integrity of the Federal Constitution and has established the Islamic jurisdiction as an equal and alternative system of governance in Malaysia, which the original Federal Constitution of Malaya never intended.
The judges cannot take the easy way out and simply decide their case in a vacuum without reference to all the precedents already set in place by no lesser judges in the same post; including the late Tun Mohd Suffian.
There are even more pointed questions concerning the constitution of the bench that heard Lina Joys\’s case. To me, it smells like gerrymandering, and maybe we can and will only know the real truth of the matter another 30 years from now as with the May13 issue! Or why did the chief judge not have a full bench if the case was not as straightforward and simple as he made it out to be.
Wrong decision
Finally, I need to comment on the, in my view, inappropriate title of the malaysiakini report No joy for Lina . While such a title is attractive, I am more concerned with the theological inaccuracy within the religious and political context.
Joy\’s spiritual joy has no correlation to earthly comforts or discomforts. Christian joy is fundamentally different from popular human happiness. While happiness is a legitimate human sense or feeling, joy is a spiritual condition of knowing with heart and mind that one is in a right relationship with one\’s Creator.
In fact, by her very own admission, to me, Joy was, in fact, very candid about her real feelings of her disappointment (translated as unhappy) that her human rights as a Malaysian were denied. But, she in no way has suggested that her joy of faith is tied to the politics, human freedoms or even recognition of her faith by the governance system of Malaysia.
I hope this clarifies the confusion about Joy\’s faith outside of the discomfort of the denial of her human rights in Malaysia and the loss of the integrity of the Federal Constitution as a result of the Federal Court decision.
In the mean time, may God Bless Malaysia as we struggle to protect our integration with the integrity of the Federal Constitution as our only human and common level of hope for all Malaysians at the national level.
