Press Conference Statement by Parliamentary Opposition leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, in Malacca on Thursday, 22.5.1986 at 12 noon.
Susie’s case: Kit Siang disagrees with Dr. Chandra Muzaffar and demand that Cabinet and all Malaysians express their grave concern at the far-reaching implication of the case.
Aliran President, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, has said in a statement that it was wrong for me to ask the cabinet to deliberate upon the implication of the Susie case where the Kota Bahru High Court recently decided that parents have no right to determine the religion of their children, and refused the application of Susie’s father, Teoh Beg Huat, that the conversion of Susie, then 17 years 8 months, to Islam was unlawful.
I have the greatest respect for Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, but in this matter, I strongly disagree with his views. I am not suggesting that the Cabinet or anyone for that matter should interfere in the judicial process, and I will be no less strenuous in the defence of the independence of the judiciary if there had been any such interference or attempt, from any quarter.
The cabinet, in fact all Malaysians, however should be gravely concerned about the implications of the Susie case, for if the Constitution and the law is as decided by the Kota Bahru High Court, that parents have no right to determine the religion of their children under the age of majority, and could do nothing about the conversion of their children to Islam without parental consent or knowledge, it will gravely threaten the very harmony and fabric of one multi-racial, multi-lingual, multi-religious and multi-cultural society. Parents will in effect lose their rights of custody and families would be broken up.
Already, in various States in the country, there have been many cases like the Susie incident.
If the Constitution and the law is as decided by the Kota Bahru High Court, then there is a need for the Constitution to be amended to ensure that the sensitivities of parents and their right to determine to religion or their children should be unmignously written into the Constitution, so that Susie’s Case would be net record in any part of Malaysia.
This is not an interference with the judicial process, for it is up to the Supreme Court, in its wisdom to decide whether the High Court of Kota Bahru was right or otherwise in the interpretation of the constitutions.
We cannot however be blind to the immediate consequences of Susie’s case in practical terms, whether from the standpoint of family unit integrity, social harmony and national unity.
The DAP wants the Cabinet to give a commitment to ensure that it is part of the Constitution rights of parents to determine the religion of their children, enjoy unchallenged custodial right over their children and protection from any attempt to wreck family unit integrity.
The DAP is financing details for a nation-wide campaign, involving both legal and Constitutional remedies, to ensure that parents in Malaysia enjoy full parental rights and not face the jeopardy whereby their children below 18 years could be forcibly taken away from their family, disappear, converted to Islam, making a mockery of the Eastern tradition of respects for family unity and parental relationships. In fact, according to the Kota Bahru High Court interpretation, non-Muslim parents cannot feel save about their daughters who are 12 or 13 (if they had reached puberty). As under Muslim law, they could be converted to Islam.
In this connection, I call on UMNO, MCA, Gerakan, MIC, and even PAS to declare whether they are support for such an unaminiguous Constitutional provision spelling put the parental rights of non-Muslim parents to determine the religion of their children?
I support Mr. Justice Harun’s strictures and calls for the repeal of matric and outmoded laws like the Restricted Residence Enactment 1933 (RRA).
High Court judge, Mr. Justice Datuk Harun Hashim, said yesterday that the Restricted Resident Enactment 1933 (RRA) may have “served and outlived the purpose, and is archaic and redundant.
The DAP supports Justice Harun’s strictures, and calls on the government to repeal archaic and outmoded laws like the RRE, especially as there are adequate provisions under present laws to combat crime.
RRA is not the only archaic and outmoded law in the country. All the emergency ordinances and regulations have also become outmoded, as they were amected during emergency conditions. At present, although the four Emergency poclamations proclaimed since Merdeka are still in force, they have become scenario as the emergency conditions justifying emergency proclamations have long period to exist. Similarly, all the emergency ordinances and regulations give become outmoded, or put it in another way, being misused for a different purpose, and should all be replaced as well.
DAP calls on Attorney-General to stop his feud with Justice Mustapha in the interest of justice and rule of law.
The attorney-General, Tan Sri Abu Talib, is carrying out a most unseemly public feud with Justice Mustapha Hussein over the judge’s hearing of the habeas corpus application to free 27 people detained in connection with the Kampong Hemali incident on last Nov. 19.
Despite pressures being exerted by the Attorney-General, including the threat to re-institute proceedings to disqualify Justice Mustapha from hearing the habeas corpus applications, the Chief Justice, Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Omar, has said that there would be no change of judge for the case and that Dr. Justice Mustapha would continue to hear the case.
I call on Tan Sri Abu Talib to have confidence in the Chief Justice and our judicially, and to stop his public to feud with Mr. Justice Mustapha in the interest of justice and rule of law.
If the Attorney-General carries out a public feud with the judiciary, how can the government expect the public to have confidence wither in the office of Attorney-General or in the judges?
The Attorney-General should not forget that his paramount duty is not just to the government of the day, but to the people and nation at large. From his discharge of his duties, it would appear that the Attorney-General have often forgotten his higher Constitutional duties and responsibilities.
The Attorney-General should gracefully bring the whole dispute to an end by letting Mr. Justice Mustapha complete the habeas corpus application without any interference. If, for any reason, he is not happy with Mr. Justice Mustapha’s decision, he could always to the Supreme Court!