Malaysia - State Imposed Religious Designations - Lina Joy***On May 30, 2007, The Federal Court of Malaysia issued a 2-1 ruling that refused recognize Lina Joy's conversion from Islam to Christianity. To read the Becket Fund's comment on the decision, click here. To read Angela Wu's editorial in the Wall Street Journal, click here. For more details about the case, scroll down the page. To make a tax-deductible donation to the Becket Fund, click here.*** The Becket Fund speaks out on behalf of people everywhere in support of their universal right to practice the religion of their choice. Recent cases on behalf of Muslims in the United States have seen the Becket Fund successfully defend the right of Muslim police officers in Newark, New Jersey to keep their beards, press for New York public schools to accomodate students fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and most recently, successfully demand that a Richardson, Texas school reverse its policy penalizing Muslim students for praying. Internationally, the Becket Fund has advocated against Azerbaijan's seizure of a mosque, and brought Muslim women to the United Nations to testify about being persecuted for wearing their headscarves in public in Turkey. Now, a woman in Malaysia, born into a Muslim family, who by conscience has been lead to choose conversion to Catholicism, is similarly fighting for her right to act according to her conscience.
April 7, 2006 Thursday, April 13, 2006, Malaysia’s Federal Court will hear the case of Lina Joy, né Azlina binti Jailani, an ethnic Malay who converted from Islam to Christianity in 1990. In 1998, she was baptised and took the sacrament of marriage with a Catholic man. Her joyful demeanor prompted her to change her name, and today she is known as Lina Joy. The Civil Marriage provision of the 1976 Law Reform Act prohibits Muslims from solemnising or registering marriage under civil law. Because Lina Joy bore a Muslim name, the Civil Registry of Marriages would not accept her application for marriage. Lina eventually managed to have her legal name changed. However, her identity card stated that she was a Muslim pursuant to a new regulation, despite her affirmative declaration that she was a Christian. The designation could not be removed until Lina Joy obtain an order from the Syariah Court stating that she had become an apostate.
Lina Joy took the matter to the civil courts. The court of first instance dismissed Lina Joy’s application on two main grounds. First, Malays could not renounce Islam at all because they were defined by the Federal Constituion to be persons of the Islamic faith. According to the High Court, a Malay’s religion and beliefs are determined by birth, not by choice.
The second ground was jurisdictional. The High Court ruled a conversion out of Islam is a religious matter that could only be dealt with by the Syariah Court. The High Court based its finding on Article 121, which states that the civil courts “shall have no jurisdiction in respect of any matter within the jurisdiction of the Syariah courts.”
Lina Joy appealed to the Court of Appeal, which dismissed her case. On April 13, the Federal Court will hold a hearing to decide whether or not to accept Lina’s last chance of appeal. If the Federal Court does not accept the case, Lina will officially and forever be considered Muslim—at least, until the Syariah Court sees fit to recognize her conversion, and designate her an apostate—legally labeling her as someone who defies God.
Significantly, Lina Joy never applied to the Syariah Court to recognize her conversion, and instead has applied to the civil courts for marital recognition without a Syariah determination of her faith. She argues that it is not the place of any court to tell her what she believes.
Lina Joy, 42, is fearful to start a family, because any children would be designated Muslim. They could then be taken away from her because they are not raised in the Muslim faith. Further, they would potentially be evidence of adultery.
With Lina Joy’s hearing next week, Malaysia is once again at a critical point in deciding whether constitutional or Syariah law will prevail over people who do not profess Islam, and whether it is indeed up to the state, de jure and de facto, to tell Malaysians what they believe. Update April 13, 2006
Malaysia's Federal Court granted leave for Lina Joy to appeal her case to Malaysia's highest court today. The Becket Fund's Director of International Advocacy, Angela C. Wu, was in Kuala Lumpur.
The Federal Court has agreed to review the following three questions: - Whether the National Registration Department (NRD) is entitled in law to impose as a requirement for deleting the entry of "Islam" in the Applicants Identity Card (IC) that she produce a certificate or a declaration or an order from the Syariah Court that she has apostatised?
- Whether the NRD has correctly construed its powers under the National Registration Regulations 1990, in particular Regulation 4 and Regulation 14, to impose the requirement as stated above when it is not expressly provided for in the Regulations?
- The requirement or condition by the NRD that the Applicant should forst obtain an order from the Syariah Court that she has apostatised is made pursuant to the decision of the Federal Court in Soon Singh v. Pertubuhan Kebajikan Islam Malaysia (Perkim) Kedah (1999) 1 MLJ 489. The question is, in the light of the differing positions in the various State Islamic/Muslim law enactments and the fundamental error on which the decision was based, whether the case of Soon Singh was rightly decided or was it decided per incuriam?
The disposition of these questions is significant in securing Malaysia's future as a country governed by constitutional law and protecting fundamental freedoms for believers of all faiths.
The Malaysian government's refusal to recognize Lina Joy's conversion constitute a violation of customary international law protection freedom of conscience as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Its refusal to grant her an identity card that recognizes her conversion or to grant her a civil marriage license on the basis of her religious status are violations of equal treatment clauses of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an United Nations treaty which Malaysia is legally bound to implement by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The lower courts' refusal of jurisdiction over this case further constitute a departure from the general principle that administrative law is governed by fundamental constitutional protections in well-functioning constitutional democracies. Update: June 26, 2006
The Federal Court will hear Lina Joy's final appeal on June 28, 2006. The Becket Fund has issued a legal opinion analysing international and comparative law issues before the Federal Court.
Update: September 7, 2006
Becket Fund International Director Angela C. Wu has an Opinion piece on the Lina Joy Story published in the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal. Click here to read it. Update: May 30, 2007 The Federal Court of Malaysia refused to recognize Lina Joy's conversion from Islam to Christianity, a decision with grave consequences for religious freedom in Malaysia. The Becket Fund's International Director, Angela Wu, offered her analysis: "This decision violates international law and stands in wrongheaded defiance of the universal human right to religious freedom. International law and the Malaysian Constitution guarantee the right to choose your own religious beliefs and change those beliefs according to your conscience. Today the Federal Court made it clear that if the state says you are a Muslim, those rights don't apply to you. Unfortunately for Lina Joy, a universal human right has been trumped by the state's insistence that she bow to sharia law."
On June 1, Angela Wu published an editorial in the Asia edition of the Wall Street Journal. To read that piece in full, click here.
Resources & Documents- Plaintiff\'s petition to the High Court (PDF, 815.78KB)
- High Court (trial court) decision (PDF, 2.58MB)
- Court of Appeals decision (PDF, 2.76MB)
- Angela C. Wu\'s Testimony Before Congressional Human Rights Caucus (Apr. 7, 2006) (PDF, 0B)
- The Becket Fund\'s legal opinion (PDF, 119.8KB)
- Angela C. Wu\'s Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal (Sept. 7, 2006) (PDF, 113.39KB)
- Lina Joy\'s Affidavit in Support (PDF, 1.11MB)
- Lina Joy Decision (May 30, 2007) - Translation (PDF, 101.02KB)
- Lina Joy Dissent (May 30, 2007) (PDF, 1.02MB)
- Angela Wu\'s Editorial in the Wall Street Journal (Jun. 1, 2007) (PDF, 153.88KB)
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