COMMENT In the Federal Court’s unanimous judgement in the custody battle between S Deepa against her ex-husband Izwan Abdullah @ Viran, it is regrettable that the issue of wrongful conversion was not decided upon or addressed in the case.

In my opinion, I believe it would be good that situations of wrongful conversion whereby the spouse who unilaterally converts the minor children without informing his/her non-Muslim spouse were made a crime punishable by law.

Such unilateral conversion of minor children without the non-Muslim spouse’s knowledge is an affront and an infringement on the rights of the non-converting spouse in upbringing their minor children or determining their religion.

What rights has the non-converting spouse against wrongful conversion? To prevent injustice to the non-converting spouse, it is advisable that the issue of converting minor children to Islam be legislated whereby either parent cannot convert their offspring to Islam without the non-converting spouse's consent.

Should such a Muallaf parent carry out unilateral conversion of minor children as in the cases of the ex-husbands of Deepa, M Indira Gandhi, R Subashini and S Shamala, such actions should be punishable in law.

Better yet, such unilateral conversion should be deemed or declared as null and void ab initio, ie from the beginning.

Wrongful conversion of minor children does not benefit the family but breaks it apart as observed in the four cases mentioned above.

In the case of Deepa’s son and daughter, the apex court’s ruling to split custody not only has incurred heartache to the mother who was originally awarded custody of both by the High Court and upheld by the Appeal Court, but wrought an unusual childhood whereby sister and brother are now forcefully separated and may end up as complete strangers to each other as opposed to a standard situation of siblings growing up together.

Also alarming is that Mithran was ordered to stay with Izwan, against whom Deepa has lodged more than seven police reports for domestic violence from 2007 to 2012 and had received an interim protection order in August 2013 while they were still married.

Henceforth, I reiterate my proposal that such a legislation be enacted to render such unilateral conversions null and void and an offence by the Muallaf parent.

KEVIN KOO SENG KIAT is an MCA Youth central committee member, and MCA syariah law & policy implementation special task force committee member.