DAP Ipoh Barat MP M Kulasegaran hailed the government’s move to have interfaith disputes besetting civil marriages resolved in a civil court as a “crucial dent to an otherwise relentless drift towards syariah law in the country”.

Counsel to kindergarten teacher M Indira Gandhi, perhaps the most poignant victim of the tug-of-war between civil and Islamic jurisdictions that has in recent years roiled race-cum-religious relations in Malaysia, Kulasegaran said:

“Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s disclosure that amendments to the Law Reform Act 1976 on marriage and divorce will be tabled in October’s sitting of Parliament is balm for battered hearts, especially in cases where estranged parents fight for the custody of children who have been converted to Islam by a converted spouse.”