KUALA LUMPUR – A 38-year-old woman has failed to nullify her status as a Muslim after the Federal Court dismissed her appeal today.
The three-person bench came to a 2-1 decision, with judges Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Datuk Abu Bakar Jais ruling her appeal had no merit while judge Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan dissented.
In the majority decision, Abang Iskandar said even though the woman’s conversion – which took place when she was 5-years-old in 1991 – was invalid as she had yet to reach puberty, it did not mean she was “never a Muslim”.
“The woman, since she was 5-years-old, was legally placed, and continued to be in the care and custody of her mother, who is a Muslim convert.
“Although her conversion was invalid, it does not mean factually she was never a Muslim,” he said, adding that the judges had vigorously examined the woman’s written submission and oral arguments.
Lim, when delivering her dissenting view, among others, said the woman was not a Muslim by birth and Islam was not her original religion, and she was challenging the validity of her conversion.
“In my view, she was never a Muslim because of the invalid and illegal conversion.”
The woman was born in 1986 to a Hindu father and a Buddhist mother. Her parents were divorced in 1991, and her mother converted to Islam in 1991 to marry a Muslim man.
They were married in 1993 but her husband died in a motorcycle accident in 1996.
The woman claimed to have continued practising the Hindu faith despite her mother unilaterally converting her to Islam.
On December 12, 2013, the woman filed a summons at the Kuala Lumpur shariah high court for a declaration that she was no longer a Muslim, which was dismissed on July 20, 2017.
The shariah court of appeal dismissed her appeal on August 1, 2017.
She then filed a civil suit at the high court seeking a declaration that she was not a person professing the religion of Islam, and named the Selangor Islamic Religious Council and the Selangor government as respondents.
On December 21, 2021, the Shah Alam High Court allowed her suit and declared she was not a Muslim. However, on January 13, 2022, that decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal in a 2-1 decision. – May 3, 2024