KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 27 — With opinions split over the use of the Arabic word for God in Malaysia, legal experts here said federal and state leaders must cast aside their political differences and reinforce the country’s supreme law, which they see as the only way out of the “Allah” quagmire.

Lawyers contacted by The Malay Mail Online added that the 10-point deal mooted in 2011 by the Cabinet is not a lasting solution unless it is followed by firm action, which they observed has been wanting as both the Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) blocs have abdicated their responsibility to resolve the interfaith row.

“I think the Christian community has been let down by both sides of the political divide,” Andrew Khoo said when contacted over the weekend.

The chairman of the Bar Council’s Human Rights Committee noted that Putrajaya has been soft in its commitment to the 10-point agreement it proposed to ward off potential fires in the 2011 Sarawak state election after a shipment of Malay-language bibles containing the “Allah” word were seized at the port.

The 13-member BN coalition controls 10 out of the 13 states in the country, including Sabah and Sarawak while the three-party PR administers Penang, Selangor and Kelantan.

Khoo said the Selangor PR government has also been lax in hauling up a “state department which has gone rogue and is acting independently”, referring to the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (Jais) which raided the Bible Society of Malaysia earlier this month and carted off over 300 Malay and Iban bibles.

He highlighted that the 1988 state law said to empower Jais to conduct the raid only controls the propagation of other religions to Muslims, while the 10-point federal solution dealt with the printing, import and distribution of bibles among the local Christian community.

However, the federal government cannot force the states to follow its 10-point solution as it did not have the “binding force of law”, civil liberties lawyer Syahredzan Johan said.

“This means that the 10-point solution cannot be relied upon to challenge state enactments such as the 1988 Selangor enactment,” he said.

In Malaysia, matters concerning Islam fall under the jurisdiction of the respective state Ruler; the exception being Penang, Sabah, Sarawak and the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan, which have no sultan.

In order to give breath to the Cabinet policy, both federal and state governments need to push the 10-point deal through their respective lawmaking houses, other lawyers told The Malay Mail Online.

Senior lawyer Joy Appukuttan suggested that the BN, being the federal government, initiate the process, by seeking a revision of the controversial enactments in the states it also controls.

“They are in control, they can give directives to state governments to do something about that,” he said.

Joy added that the BN could also advise the three other states it does not control to ensure their enactments were amended to be consistent with the Federal Constitution, the country’s founding document and supreme law, which guarantees freedom of religion.

He cautioned that if the federal government is not proactive, a repeat of “unlawful raids” at the state level may continue.

Lawyers have previously said that one such law, the Selangor Non-Islamic Religions (Control of Propagation Among Muslims) Enactment 1988, was unconstitutional as it carried a blanket ban on non-Muslim use of a list of Arabic words including “Allah” without limiting it to propagation of religion to Muslims.

Another civil liberties lawyer, Nizam Bashir, suggested that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak lead the federal and state co-operation to reach a common ground and end the “Allah” deadlock.

“Who else is the best person to provide leadership if not the prime minister?” he asked.

“The prime minister should be hosting a meeting for the respective chief ministers, for all the states to come up with a common stand on the matter,” Nizam said.

In Malaysia, “Allah” is widely seen as an exclusive name for the Muslim God by the religion’s followers who form over 60 per cent of the country’s 29 million population.

Malaysia’s Muslim majority and Christian minority have been locked in a tussle for the right to call their respective Gods “Allah” since the Catholic Church went to court in 2008 to challenge a Home Ministry ban on publishing the word in its weekly newspaper, Herald.

Several other Christian personalities have since launched their own lawsuits against the federal government, claiming a violation of their constitutional freedom to worship.

In the latest court battle, two Sabah Catholics filed a suit against the Home Ministry on Friday over the seizure of 2,000 copies of the Herald last year.

The High Court in Kota Kinabalu will hear the joint application by activist Daniel John Jambun and lawyer Marcel Jude Josephcase on February 10.