PETALING JAYA, July 8 ― Putrajaya retracted the disputed Administration of the Religion of Islam (Federal Territories) Bill 2013 from Parliament this morning, yielding to criticism that it was attempting to legislate unilateral child conversion to Islam that the Cabinet had prohibited in 2009.

Minister in charge of Islamic affairs Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom filed to have the Bill withdrawn, along with two others. Jamil Khir was also the minister who tabled the proposed laws last month.

Speaking to reporters in Parliament this morning, Jamil Khir said the Syariah Court Civil Procedure (Federal Territories) (Amendment) Bill 2013 and Syariah Criminal Procedures (Federal Territories) (Amendment) Bill 2013 were also withdrawn.

He did not, however, provide the reasons for their withdrawal.

On Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said in a statement here that Cabinet had discussed the matter at length and decided to retract the Administration of the Religion of Islam (Federal Territories) Bill 2013 pending further study.

He was reported by national news agency Bernama as saying that the issue of a child’s religious status, particularly in cases where either the mother or father is Muslim, should be discussed thoroughly among all relevant stakeholders before it is turned into law.

“The Cabinet had agreed that the retraction of the Bill was necessary to ensure that the issue on the determination of the child’s religion in such cases was resolved in a fair manner for everyone,” he was quoted as saying.

All further amendments to the law contained in the Bill would also be retracted for now, he added.

The uproar over the proposed law was such that it even saw rare public division over the issue within Cabinet, with ministers Datuk Seri G. Palanivel, Datuk Paul Low and Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz all publicly speaking out against the Bill.

The attempt to legislate single parent consent for child conversion to Islam had caught the attention of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Sikhism and Taoism (MCCBCHST) and Bar Council shortly after it was tabled, with both calling the move unconstitutional.

The MCCBCHST went a step further and slammed the Cabinet as “insincere” for introducing the law despite a 2009 announcement by then law minister Nazri banning the unilateral conversion of minors to Islam.

Custodial tussles in cases of unilateral child conversions have been a growing concern over the years and provide a high-profile glimpse of the concerns of Malaysia’s religious minorities over the perceived dominance of Islam in the country.

It also highlights the complications of Malaysia’s dual legal systems where Muslims are bound by both civil and syariah laws, the latter of which do not apply to or recognise non-Muslims.

Cases since Nazri’s 2009 announcement, such as that of a Hindu mother in Negri Sembilan who discovered in April her estranged husband had converted their two underage children to Islam after he had done so a year earlier without her knowledge, also illustrate the lack of adherence to the ruling.