KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 — The Najib administration must allay concern that it is departing from its own 2009 ruling prohibiting single-parent conversions of children to Islam after one minister said this was again permissible, a DAP lawmaker said today.
Saying that Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Bararom’s parliamentary reply on Wednesday was in direct contravention of the prevailing Cabinet position, Seputeh MP Teresa Kok said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak must renew his administration’s commitment to bar the practice.
“Unilateral conversion of minors is unfair and unjust and causes problems, cruelty and trauma. It also contravenes the provision in the Federal Constitution. As pointed out by Datuk Seri Nazri (Aziz), it has even been used as a tool to obtain custody of children,” Kok said in a statement today.
“Datuk Seri Najib must immediately repudiate Jamil and Muhyiddin and reaffirm the Cabinet’s commitment to the 2009 Cabinet decision and its implementation.”
On Wednesday, Jamil Khir said the approval of one parent in a marriage was sufficient to change a child’s religion to Islam, arguing that the word as it appears in the Article 12(4) of the Federal Constitution was singular, “parent” instead of “parents”.
But legal experts point out that Article 160 of the country’s supreme law that refers to the Eleventh Schedule states that “words in the singular include the plural” and “words importing the masculine gender include females”.
Bar Council president Chris Leong also disputed Jamil Khir’s use of the Federal Court case involving Hindu mother S. Shamala’s battle with her Muslim convert ex-husband, saying the apex court declined to make a judgment on whether unilateral child conversions were lawful.
Today, Kok said Putrajaya’s failure to publicly endorse its own decision has led to more public statements contravening the stand, including one by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin saying that the unilateral conversion of minors, while problematic, was not unlawful.
In 2009, then de facto law minister Nazri announced the Cabinet’s decision to prohibit the unilateral conversion of minors to Islam, noting that this was being abused to escape the responsibilities of a civil union and gain custody of children.
The ruling itself is not legally binding or enforceable, but legal experts point out that it was a reaffirmation of the Federal Constitution’s position on the matter.
These experts further contend that no additional legislation were needed, merely the adherence to the correct interpretation of the relevant section of the country’s supreme law.
But despite the Cabinet decision, unilateral child conversions continue to take place on a regular basis.
The issue most commonly manifests itself in the form of a legal limbo surrounding interfaith custody battles, as one non-Muslim spouse attempts to gain custody via the civil courts while the Muslim half — almost always the husband — tries the same via the shariah route.
The matter has now been exacerbated by the refusal of the police to execute a civil court order for it to return a child taken by a Muslim convert father to the Hindu mother.
