No contempt for areligious police force to enforce civil law, experts say

By admin-s Last updated Jun 13, 2014

(MMO) – The police force as an organisation has no religion and should carry out the civil court’s orders to return children taken by their Muslim convert fathers to their non-Muslim mothers, lawyers said.

They stressed that as a unit, the police need not fear running foul of Islamic law as the Shariah Court could only cite persons who profess Islam as their faith for contempt.

“The police force isn’t a person with a religion,” Syahredzan Johan told The Malay Mail Online when contacted.

“Also, enforcing a High Court specific recovery order over and above the Shariah custody order would not amount to contempt of the Shariah court order,” the civil liberties lawyer added, pointing out that as law enforcers acting pursuant to a court order, the police have a “legitimate excuse” to act contrary to the Islamic court order.

Malaysia’s unique legal system, which provides for state Islamic courts to adjudicate matters involving Muslims alongside the civil courts have sparked controversy over the years when both systems overlap.

The latest conflict arose as the country’s police chief steadfastly refused to carry out the High Court’s orders to seize two girls unilaterally converted to Islam by their fathers and taken away from their Hindu mothers, claiming the force to be “sandwiched” between the two judicial systems.

Syahredzan said when the Shariah courts and civil courts give conflicting custody orders – which do not come with any specific orders for the police to enforce, “it would be understandable if they don’t want to recognise one over the other”.

“Understandably, the police would not be in a position to decide which one is correct. This is something that must be resolved by the courts, or perhaps through legislation,” he said.

But he stressed that if the civil court issues specific instructions, such as ordering the police to recover the child from one parent, and the police refuse, the force can be cited for contempt of court.

Andrew Khoo, who co-chairs the Bar Council’s Human Rights Committee, echoed a similar view, pointing out that the Shariah Court holds no sway over the police force because the law enforcement agency cannot profess any religion.

He also pointed out that recovery orders from the civil courts were made with the “full knowledge of, and notwithstanding” the Shariah courts’ custody orders.

“The police must therefore enforce the court order, and cannot hide inside the so-called gap between the two legal systems because the High Court had already taken that into account,” Khoo told The Malay Mail Online.

He said the Shariah Court could not hold the police force “in contempt because they are following an order from the federal system”.

Either parent who felt dissatisfied with the civil court ruling could pursue their case at its next level, Khoo noted, stressing that it was not for the police to interpret the law but to enforce it.