PUTRAJAYA: A 38-year-old woman who said she was unilaterally converted to Islam as a child by her mother, has embarked on her second attempt to get a Federal Court declaration that she is not a Muslim.
Her lawyer A. Surendra Ananth said an application, seeking to set aside a "per incuriam" (wrong at law) majority ruling delivered by the apex court on May 3, was filed two months ago under Rules 78 and 137 of the Federal Court Rules 1995.
According to a report by Free Malaysia Today, the application, which named the Selangor government as respondent, stated that the decision was made in excess of jurisdictions and violated the rules of natural justice.
She called for a fresh panel to rehear her appeal and urged the court to set aside the previous majority ruling.
Surendra said the application for leave to review the decision was fixed for Jan 6.
In a Court of Appeal majority ruling, its president Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and judge Datuk Abu Bakar Jais ruled that the woman's appeal had no merit while judge Datuk Mary Lim, who has retired, dissented.
Abang Iskandar said it was undisputed that the woman had previously sought to renounce Islam at the Kuala Lumpur Syariah Courts and its dismissal for her application stands.
However, Lim said the Syariah Courts did not have the jurisdiction to hear the application as the conversion took place in Shah Alam.
She had said the Syariah Courts also does not have jurisdiction to adjudicate on the Administration of Religion of Islam (Selangor Enactment).
Lim said the woman was not a born Muslim and was unilaterally converted by her mother when she was a child, and that a person could only be assumed to be Muslim if she uttered the 'kalimah shahadah' (proclaimation of faith).
She also said the woman's previous application to renounce her faith at the Syariah Courts was not tantamount to a submission to the jurisdiction of the Islamic court.
The woman, born a Hindu in 1986, was still a child when the unilateral conversion to Islam by her mother at the Selangor Islamic Religious Department in 1991 while her parents were in the midst of a divorce which finalised the next year.
Her mother married a Muslim man in 1993 while her father died in an accident three years later.
She contended that despite being a Muslim, her mother and stepfather allowed her to continue to practice the Hindu faith.