Gerakan urges judges to place constitution above religion

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Gerakan has expressed concern that the country’s judges have not been prioritising the federal constitution when ruling on cases that involve religion.

“Of late recent judicial decisions showed that judges are cautious and quite often inclined to decide by not giving priority to the supreme law, that is, the federal constitution when deciding cases that involved religion matters.

”Our country takes great pride in being a melting pot of different races, religions and cultures.

“Although the majority of our judges are Muslims, they must uphold their constitutional oath to defend the constitution and rule of law,” said its deputy youth chief Andy Yong in a statement today.

Gerakan is challenging PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s private member’s bill to implement hudud law in Kelantan.

Yong stressed, "From day one, Gerakan is not challenging Islam, but to defend and uphold the supremacy of our federal constitution when we filed in the hudud legal challenge."

"I hope the same mindset applies to our judge in due course especially on Oct 20, when our case is fixed for hearing at the Federal Court in Putrajaya," he said.

Ironically, the hudud enactment was passed at state level in Kelantan with the unanimous support of assemblypersons from both PAS and Umno, Gerakan’s BN coalition partner.

Hadi’s bill in Parliament is to see approval to put the enactment into action.

But although Kelantan’s enactment was put together in consultation with a joint technical committee formed with the BN government, the bill has thus far been skipped over in the past two parliamentary sittings.

Reject political expediency

Yong echoed law lecturer Azmi Shahrom’s call yesterday that judges should quit if can't uphold the constitution.

Among recent cases that have raised eyebrows was the overturning of a Court of Appeal ruling that the syariah persecution of cross dressing was unconstitutional.

The since retired judge Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus who had made the initial ruling in favour of ending the persecution of a group of transgenders, also commented that the 2010 ruling on The Herald ’s use of the word ‘Allah’ should have stood .

Yong meanwhile urged that “political expedience” not be a factor in the country’s legal system, and that root causes of problems, such as those which are purported to be the targets of hudud, be examined instead.

"Also let us not forget about the doctrine of separation of powers practice in our country.

“The judiciary is independent and should be free from influence (if any) especially from the executive," added Yong.

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