ISLAMIC LEGAL SYSTEM IN MALAYSIA

ISLAMIC LEGAL SYSTEM IN MALAYSIA

Many countries practice this law as a whole. Saudi Arabia for example, they enforce total hudud. If you make a mistake, you will be punished the Islamic way.

While in Malaysia, syaria courts only deal with family matters, along with several other offences regarding islam. But, only muslim were tried under the syariah law. For example, if a muslim commit zina with a non-muslim, only the muslim is being tried in the syariah court. The punishment is unislamic nevertheless.

In Malaysia, we have a dual judicial system. Civil law and syaria law. Civil laws is made and amended by the Parliament, while most of the syaria law is made and amended by Dewan Undangan Negeri. Religious matters are under the power of the ruler of states or by the Sultan. Means, we have 14 different syaria laws which is different in every states. Laws in Selangor are not the same as the law in Johor or Kelantan.

Sultan also has a power to pardon you if you are convicted under his state’s syariah law. This is the same as the power of high priest. They can pardon people’s sin. But not many of the sultan have done this before.

Syariah court in Malaysia does not have many power, for example a person can only be sentenced to in a limit of 3 years of prison, Rm5000 fine, or 6 strokes of rotan. Beyond that, you have to be tried in a civil court. For example, if you drink wine, you should get 80 counts of rotan, but the syaria court only have the authority to give 6 counts of it under the federal constitution.

Furthermore, under federal constitution, females cannot be canned. In the case of Kartika Sari Dewi, She have been found guilty of drinking wine in the public and have been sentenced to 6 strokes of rotan under Pahang syaria enactments but they cannot do it because the prison authority does not have any guidelines of doing it. In other words, they do not know how to cane her the Islamic way. At last, the Sultan of Pahang converted her sentence to community service. However, according to Kartika herself, she would rather be caned because she wanted to follow the Islamic way. Furthermore, there were 6 females that have been caned under syariah authority 2 days before Kartika’s punishment is converted.

The fight between the supporters of Islamic Legal System and their opposing side has been a long fight since the Reid’s Commission is established to make a constitution for the federation of Malaysia.

Many argued that in a multi-cultural country like us, we should have a dual legal system. Other argues that it is not our place to question the orders of Allah.

Either way, it was the Malaysian muslim themselves that rejects syariah laws. Maybe it is our own fault that muslim world become weak.