Kelantan will table the hudud amendment bill on March 18, in the midst of the Chempaka by-election.

Deputy Menteri Besar Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah ( below ) said yesterday the state assembly will discuss the bill at its next sitting, which is from March 16 to 19.

He said this when attending a local Chinese association leader's New Year open house, according to a report in Sin Chew Daily today.

The assembly sitting coincides with the 12-day campaign period for the Chempaka by-election.

The state seat was vacated when former MB Nik Aziz Nik Mat passed away on Feb 12.

The Election Commission had announced that the nomination and polling day for the Chempaka by-election will be on March 10 and March 22 respectively.

Postponed due to floods

Kelantan’s plan to table the bill on Dec 29 was scuppered when the worst floods in decades hit the state late last year.

Menteri Besar Ahmad Yakob was intent on pressing on with the tabling but was forced to postpone when the situation worsened, and the state assembly building was submerged in at least 30cm of water.

 

The state’s push to implement hudud has received tacit support from the federal government, which set up a national hudud technical committee on May 2 last year.

 

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Jamil Khir Baharom ( left ) had announced that the committee will be studying the implementation of the Kelantan hudud enactment.

 

The Kelantan government has formed its own state-level technical committee over a year ago and six state representatives also sit on the national committee.

 

The Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code (II) Enactment 1993, commonly referred to as the Kelantan hudud law, was passed by the state assembly on Nov 25, 1993, but has never been implemented.

 

Details of the amendment bill have not been divulged even to PAS' Pakatan partners.

 

The opposition coalition’s leadership council meeting held the day before PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy II verdict decided to defer its decision on the tabling of a private member’s bill on hudud in Parliament.

 

Criminal matters a federal jurisdiction

Kelantan government’s zeal for hudud has been stymied by the fact that criminal matters fall under federal, and not state, jurisdiction.

 

The private member’s bill, if passed, will enable Kelantan to legislate on criminal matters, paving the way for hudud to be implemented in the state 22 years after it was enacted.

 

In 2002, lawyer-politician Zaid Ibrahim, who was then Kota Bharu Umno division chief, launched a constitutional challenge on the state enactment.

 

Zaid had filed an application at the Federal Court for a declaration that Kelantan and Terengganu had no power to legislate its Islamic criminal laws, including hudud.

                                   

However, Zaid later was ordered by Umno to withdraw his court application.

The party feared that a constitutional challenge against hudud by one of its own would affect its chances at the 2004 elections.

While the Islamic party may have been the only one to push for hudud implementation in the 1990s, the issue has become part of Umno’s agenda, more so after it lost substantial support from Malay-Muslims in the 2013 general election, which also denied BN their two-third majority in Parliament.

 

PAS’ championing of the Islamic criminal enactment has caused a deep schism in Pakatan, especially between PAS and DAP, and among the coalition supporters.