The Kuala Lumpur High Court will set a new trial date on Feb 27 on the suit filed by Catholic weekly Herald on the use of the ‘Allah'.

Judge Lau Bee Lan gave the Feb 27 mention date to allow all parties sufficient time to file their affidavits.

The case was filed by applicant the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur Murphy Pakiam, seeking a judicial review against the Home Ministry directive forbidding Herald from using the word ‘Allah'.

On July 9, seven Islamic and one Sikh religious council had applied to intervene in the case.

herald case intervening parties 090708 This morning several of these state Islamic religious councils wanted to refer the dispute to the Federal Court for determination on the constitutionality of law.

Following this move, they requested the High Court to issue a stay of the judicial review proceedings.

Lawyer Mubashir Mansor, representing the Terengannu, Penang and Malacca state religious councils, informed the court that the intervernors intended to file the application to the Federal Court to define the constitutionality of certain laws relating to the case.

Mubashir said under Section 64 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964, the court was required to grant a stay of the proceedings to enable the parties to bring up the matter for determination by the Federal Court.

Counsel Haniff Khatri Abdulla, representing the state religious councils of Selangor, Kedah and Johor and counsel Sulaiman Abdullah representing the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council (MAWIP), supported the application.

Justice Lau then ordered Mubashir to make a written submission pursuant to his stay application before she made her ruling on whether to grant the stay or not.

Law also approved applications by state councils to intervene and be named as respondents in the judicial review proceedings.

The court gave the order after hearing submissions today from parties to intervene in the judicial review.

Justice Lau then fixed Feb 27 next year for mention of the case to enable the parties to file any affidavits required in the judicial review.

Representation to the AG

Meanwhile, the Malaysian Gurdwaras Council told the court that it wanted to submit a representation to the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) in not making this issue a confrontation.

Lawyer Porres P Royan represented the archbishop while senior federal counsel Nizam Zakaria represented the Home Ministry and the government.

endon funeral 201005 murphy pakiam Archbishop Pakiam ( photo ) on behalf of the Herald is seeking the following declarations from the court:

  • for the ministry to declare that its decision to prohibit the Herald from using the word ‘Allah' in its publication is null and void; the Herald is entitled to use the word ‘Allah' in the publication and that the word ‘Allah' is not exclusive to the religion of Islam.

  • to quash the ministry's decision in prohibiting the Herald from using the word ‘Allah' in its publication.

  • an order for the Herald to continue using ‘Allah' in its publication until the court decides on the matter.

The Herald, which publishes news and information for Catholics in Malaysia in four languages - English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil - has a circulation of around 12,000.