K KANGSAR POLLS Parti Amanah Negara (Amanah) said today PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang's Private Member's Bill was riddled with defects and should be rectified.

Perak Amanah chief Asmuni Awi (top photo, centre) said this when asked whether the party would support the bill, which seeks to amend the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965.

Asmuni said the bill was “ambiguous” as some details were not stated clearly.

“We have studied the motion that was tabled previously and we found that there were so many defects in the wording and that has got to be rectified first,” he told a press conference at the party’s headquarters here today.

Asmuni added that the bill may not even be re-tabled in Parliament.

“(Because) I believe it was just a political ploy by BN for the purpose of the by-elections,” he said.

Yesterday, PAS deputy president Tuan Ibrahim Tuan challenged Amanah and BN's Kuala Kangsar candidates to state their stand on the bill.

This was after the Islamist party's own candidate, Dr Najihatussalehah Ahmad, declared she would vote for it in Parliament if she won.

On PAS' research showing that 83 percent of Malay respondents agreed with the bill, Asmuni said there was a possibility they were misled.

“I think they were misled, it (the bill) has nothing to do with hudud, it is just to enhance the power of the syariah court,” he said.

The amendments in Hadi's bill is said to be aimed at strengthening the power of the syariah court, but will effectively remove federal obstacles to implementing hudud in Kelantan.

Hadi's bill on Act 355 was again tabled in Parliament on May 26, the last day of the sitting, after having been skipped in the previous two sittings.

Umno minister Azalina Othman Said surprised the House by moving a motion to bring the bill forward, claiming she was instructed by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak and Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to do so.

PAS and Hadi, however, repeatedly told the people that the bill had nothing to do with hudud's implementation.

The bill, if passed in Parliament, will allow Kelantan to implement hudud partially as the syariah court will then be allowed to impose all the hudud penalties except the death sentence.

Currently, the syariah court’s powers limit it to imposing a maximum three years’ jail sentence, RM5,000 fine and six strokes of the cane.