Justice Tan Sri Abdull Hamid EmbongPUTRAJAYA, Jan 21 (Bernama) — The Catholic Church, Wednesday failed in its attempt to enlarge the panel of a five-man bench to hear its final legal battle over the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Bahasa Malaysia section of the Herald, its weekly publication.
Federal Court Judge Tan Sri Abdull Hamid Embong, who chaired the panel of the Federal Court judges, unanimously dismissed the application of the church to have a larger bench.
The other four judges were Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop, Tan Sri Hasan Lah, Datuk Ramly Ali and Datuk Azahar Mohamed.
“Your application is to review the majority judgment of four judges. Today we have five judges, so it is practically in effect a larger bench,” said Justice Abdull Hamid.
He said Chief Justice Tun Arifin Zakaria had on Tuesday rejected the application of the church to enlarge the quorum and, therefore, the panel Wednesday could not decide against its superior (Arifin) who was empowered to form the panel to hear a case.
The church is seeking leave to appeal against a Court of Appeal decision which had allowed a government application to overturn the 2009 High Court decision that the Herald could use the word ‘Allah’.
Last June, a seven-member Federal Court panel chaired by Arifin, in a majority judgment, dismissed the application of the church for leave to appeal.
Today, the Federal Court, after rejecting the application by the church to enlarge the panel, proceeded to hear submissions on the review application by Datuk Dr Cyrus Das, lead counsel for the church.
At the outset, the court heard submissions by Das on the larger panel. Das submitted that today’s panel should be larger than the previous bench which comprised seven judges.
He said it was not appropriate for a smaller panel to review a decision of the previous panel which was bigger than the current quorum.
Senior Federal Counsel Suzana Atan, appearing for the Home Ministry and the government, argued that the power to determine the quorum lay with the chief justice and that could not be questioned.
“We are fully confident, no matter how many judges sit on the panel,” she said.
Lawyer Datuk Sulaiman Abdullah, holding a watching brief for the Terengganu Islamic Religious Council, argued that the five judges were fully entitled to hear the review application.
He said that since the last sitting was presided by a seven-member panel, it would be difficult to empanel the bench, looking at the total number of Federal Court judges.
On Sept 19 last year, the Catholic Church filed a review application against the Federal Court decision to dismiss its application for leave to appeal over the Court of Appeal decision.
Justice Arifin, chairing a seven-member panel, held that the 28 questions on administrative law, constitutional law and general questions framed by the church failed to meet the threshold requirements under Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 to be granted leave to appeal.
The Court of Appeal had on Oct 14, 2013, unanimously allowed the government’s appeal to overturn a High Court ruling that the Herald could use the word ‘Allah’.
The High Court had declared on Dec 31, 2009, that the decision by the Home Ministry to ban the Herald from using the word ‘Allah’ was illegal, null and void.
There were nine respondents in the case, namely the Home Ministry, the government, the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council, five state Islamic religious councils and the Malaysian Chinese Muslims Association (MACMA).
The five states are Terengganu, Kedah, Johor, Melaka and Selangor.
–BERNAMA
