PUTRAJAYA (Jan 24): The Federal Court on Wednesday said a nine-member bench will deliver its decision on a constitutional challenge mounted by lawyer Nik Elin Zurina Nik Abdul Rashid and her daughter over the legality of 18 of Kelantan's shariah laws, which they claim are contrary to federal laws.
An email sent by Federal Court deputy registrar Suhaila Haron informed parties of the date.
The Kelantan government, its state Islamic council, and the Terengganu Islamic council are among the respondents in the matter.
Nik Elin and her daughter Tengku Yasmin Nastasha Tengku Abdul Rahman had initially set out to challenge provisions involving 20 Kelantan shariah offences which had been passed by the state legislature that were said to be in conflict with federal provisions, as such powers to create law are with the federal government.
However, the duo had dropped two of the provisions related to gambling and making false claims.
Nik Elin and her daughter is challenging laws stipulated in the Kelantan’s Syariah Criminal Code (I) Enactment 2019, including destroying or defiling a place of worship (Section 11), selling or giving away a child to non-Muslim or morally reprehensible Muslims (Section 13), sodomy (Section 14), and sexual intercourse with a corpse (Section 16).
Other provisions are sexual intercourse with a non-human (Section 17), words capable of breaking place (Section 30), sexual harassment (Section 31), consuming anything intoxicating (Section 36), gambling (Section 37), reducing scale, measurement and weight (Section 39).
The duo are also challenging execution of transactions contrary to hukum syarak (Section 40), executions of transactions via usury (Section 41), abuse of the halal label and connotations (Section 42), offering or provision of vice services (Section 43), preparatory act of offering or provision of vice services (Section 44), preparatory act of vice (Section 45), act of incest (Section 47) and middleman acting to solicit vice activities (Section 48).
Besides Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who led the bench, the other eight members were Court of Appeal President Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Sebli, and Federal Court judges Tan Sri Nallini Pathmanathan, Datuk Mary Lim, Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, Datuk Nordin Hassan and Datuk Abu Bakar Jais.