The Court of Appeal in Putrajaya has fixed April 25 for further case management on the appeal by the government and Home Ministry against a 2010 High Court decision that the word ‘Allah’ can be used by the Catholic weekly newspaper Herald .

Court of Appeal deputy registrar Muhammed Zaki Abdul Kudos fixed the new case management date to enable the respondent, the Kuala Lumpur Catholic Church, to file further affidavits.

The matter came up before Muhammed Zaki in chambers today.

Muhammed Zaki has also fixed May 8 for the Court of Appeal to hear the appeals brought by seven parties, including six Islamic religious councils and the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association, against a High Court ruling in rejecting their application to become intervenors in the church’s judicial review application at the High Court.

The Islamic religious councils are from the states of Terengganu, Selangor, Kedah, Johor, Wilayah Persekutuan and Malacca.

The appeal has been fixed for case management for the first time since the High Court ruling on Dec 31, 2009. It was earlier scheduled for case management on Feb 28 but the date was vacated to today.

Appearing for the government and Home Ministry were a team of senior federal counsel led by Arik Sanusi Yeop Johari.

The Islamic religious councils and Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association were represented by a team of lawyers led by Abdul Rahim Sinwan, while the church is represented by lawyer S Selvarajah.

In her ruling, High Court judge Lau Bee Lan declared that the decision by the home minister prohibiting Herald from using the word ‘Allah’ in its Bahasa Malaysia publication, which specially caters to the people in Sabah and Sarawak, was illegal, null and void.

The suit was filed by the Catholic Church led by Archbishop Murphy Pakiam on Feb 16, 2009, naming the Home Ministry and the government as respondents in the judicial review application.

They sought, among others, a declaration that the decision by the Home Ministry on Jan 7, 2009, prohibiting the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Herald was illegal and that the word ‘Allah’ is not exclusive to the religion of Islam.

The weekly, published in four languages, has been using the word ‘Allah’ as a translation for ‘God’ in its Malay language section, but the government argued that ‘Allah’ should be used exclusively by Muslims only.

- Bernama