KUALA LUMPUR, May 27 — Two Barisan Nasional components expressed alarm over the near-tabling of PAS’s hudud Bill yesterday, which was made possible when an Umno minister elevated the motion in Parliament’s standing orders.

MIC president Datuk Seri Dr. S. Subramaniam said the private member’s Bill submitted by PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang would subvert the constitutional rights to equality and protection from retrospectively harsher punishments.

“The cornerstone of our Federal Constitution was never constructed for a dual criminal justice system. Further, there should not be any room for replication of the offences within any Federal law with a separate degree of punishment only for Muslims,” he said in a statement.

Dr. Subramaniam then demanded that PAS discontinue attempts to table the Bill in Parliament, but made no mention of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Azalina Othman, whose intercession made it possible for the Bill to make an historic appearance in Parliament.

MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, who also stated his party’s rejection of the Bill, warned that the attempt to remove the legal barriers to implementing the Islamic penal code would jeopardise inter-ethnic relations in Malaysia.

The transport minister said his party would object against any attempt to introduce such laws in Malaysia, and urged the ruling BN not to support the PAS agenda.

“We want the government to maintain the existing structure of our legal system which was designed based on the spirit and intention of the Federal Constitution — justice for all regardless of race, religion or background in a secular society,” he said.

Azalina yesterday motioned to expedite the tabling of Hadi’s Bill, which was the 15th and final item in the Parliament’s order papers for the day, catching lawmakers from both sides of the aisle by surprise.

Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia approved the motion, and described his decision as a precedent that allowed the tabling of an opposition lawmaker’s Bill that would otherwise “never see the light of day”.

But the decision triggered a bizarre and surprising response from Hadi.

When asked by a smiling Pandikar if he wished to have his Bill debated yesterday or in the next sitting in October, Hadi requested his motion — which twice failed to make it to Dewan Rakyat — be deferred.

Yesterday’s events along with MCA and MIC’s protests will renew questions over BN’s consensus principle and Umno’s dominance of the coalition, in which policy decisions must gain unanimous support of all component parties.

PAS is seeking to amend the Shariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 to empower the Islamic courts to impose any punishment besides the death sentence.