KUALA LUMPUR, May 28 — The Federal Court will decide next month on whether the Catholic Church can go on to appeal a ruling that upholds the Home Ministry’s ban on the word “Allah” in the weekly paper Herald, the church’s lawyer S. Selvarajah said today.

When contacted, Selvarajah confirmed that the country’s highest court had fixed a date for the decision on the Catholic Church’s leave application, saying: “It’s 23rd June”.

The June 23 decision date comes more than three months after a seven-man panel at the Federal Court heard on March 5 the Catholic Church’s application for leave to appeal.

But on the same day, the Federal Court had postponed indefinitely a decision on whether it will allow the Catholic Church to appeal a lower court ruling preventing the Herald from using the word “Allah” to refer to God.

Last November 11, the Catholic Church had filed for leave to appeal a Court of Appeal ruling, which reversed a landmark High Court decision in 2009 upholding their constitutional rights to use the word “Allah”.

On October 14 last year, Justice Datuk Seri Mohamed Apandi Ali, in reading a summary of Court of Appeal judgement, said the home minister had acted well within his powers to disallow the Herald from using the word “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia section.

“It is our common finding that the usage of the name ‘Allah’ is not an integral part of the faith and practice of Christianity. From such finding, we find no reason why the respondent is so adamant to use the name ‘Allah’ in their weekly publication. Such usage, if allowed, will inevitably cause confusion within the community,” the chair of a three-man panel at the Court of Appeal said before a packed courtroom.

According to a 2010 census, Muslims are Malaysia’s largest religious group, followed by Buddhists. Christians are the third largest at 2.6 million, which comes up to about 10 per cent of the entire Malaysian population.

Bumiputera Christians, who form about 64 per cent or close to two-thirds of the Christian community in Malaysia, have used the word “Allah” when praying and speaking in the national language and their native tongues for centuries.