PUTRAJAYA (Jan 23): The Federal Court has fixed Feb 20 to hear the motion for leave to appeal by the Islamic Education Developmental Council (Mappim) and the Coalition of National Writers’ Association (Gapena) over the constitutionality of teaching languages other than Bahasa Malaysia in vernacular schools.
The hearing date was confirmed by both senior federal counsel Liew Horng Bin representing the Education Ministry and government, and counsel Mohd Haniff Khatri Abdulla for the two non-governmental organisations (NGOs), following case management before Federal Court deputy registrar Faezahnoor Hassan late Monday evening.
Initially besides Gapena and Mappim, two other Malay NGOs, namely Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma) and Ikatan Guru-Guru Muslim Malaysia (i-Guru), were also appellants in the Court of Appeal, but both subsequently chose to drop out.
The two remaining NGOs posed five questions of law to be considered by the apex court bench for the full merits of the appeal to be heard.
For civil appeals at the apex court level, it is not automatic for the merits of an appeal to be heard as leave has to be gained to ensure that the appeal is not frivolous and vexatious.
On Nov 23 last year, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by the NGOs, which challenged the validity of vernacular schools.
The appellate bench ruled that vernacular schools are neither a statutory authority nor a public authority, and accordingly, the use of a language other than Malay in national type schools as a medium of instruction would not be for an "official purpose", and would therefore be permissible by the proviso in Article 152(1)(a) of the Federal Constitution.
Article 152 concerns the Malay language as the national language, while Subsection (1) (a) stipulates that no person shall be prohibited or prevented from using (other than for official purposes), or from teaching or learning, any other language.