Court sends chilling message on minority rights

The Court of Appeal had sent out a "frightening" message on the rights of the minority with its decision yesterday to ban Catholic weekly Herald from using the word ‘Allah' in its Malay publication to refer to God, the Catholic Lawyers' Society (CSL) said yesterday.

In a statement, CLS said that the decision affects the "fundamental religious rights of the minority in Malaysia."

"To find that the minority must yield to the majority also sends a frightening message that the minorities' rights are subject to the whims and fancies of the majority.

"It would seem that the voices of those who profess the path of moderation are being drowned out by those who are intolerant," lamented CLS.

Similarly, DAP publicity chief Tony Pua said that the court had "neglected its equal, if not greater role to protect and defend the rights of the minority".

"A court decision based purely on the wishes of the majority justifies the ‘tyranny of the majority'.

"This violates Article 8 of the Federal Constitution where ‘all persons are equal before the law and entitled to the equal protection of the law'," he said in a separate press statement last night.

Pua said that the it is not the place of the Court of Appeal to decide who are the majority and what they want.

"It should be emphasised again that the role of the court is to determine ‘legality' and not making highly subjective moral judgements on ill-defined subjects," he said.

Home minister 'empowered'

Pua also said that the court decision has "empowered" the home minister to make executive decisions by banning words that he deems can cause "confusion" among religions.

"With such powers, the home minister will be able to rule that the Sikh holy book should be banned, as should any church in East or West Malaysia be declared illegal for the widely accepted use of the term ‘Allah', and the court will deem itself to have ‘no plausible reason for the High Court to interfere with the minister's decision'," Pua said.

Pua said that with yesterday's decision, the court has given itself power to make "discretionary judgments" made on the basis of the judges "viewpoints and bias".