Police chief making things ‘murkier’ by enforcing civil court order, says group

(Malay Mail Online) – Malaysia’s police chief should not have ordered the Perak force to arrest a Muslim convert in an interfaith child custody battle for defying a High Court order, according to the Malaysian Shariah Lawyers Association.

The police chief’s order is making the custody battle “murkier” as the Shariah court ranks equal with the civil court, the group said.

In 2009, Mohd Ridzuan Abdullah, a Muslim convert, was granted custody of the child at the centre of the dispute and her siblings by a Shariah court after he unilaterally converted them to Islam.

The High Court overturned this decision and granted full custody to the children’s mother, Indira Ghandi in 2010, but Ridzuan has refused to surrender the youngest child, who was only 11 months old when he took her away.

“The Shariah order can be enforced, so can the civil order. The IGP’s (Inspector General of Police) order can be enforced if it has been decided which order is in ruling,” PGSM president Musa Awang told the website of Islamist group, Ikatan Muslimin Malaysia (Isma).

“What the authorities should have done is find the best method to solve the two overlapping orders.”

The IGP’s directions yesterday followed a June 12 order from Ipoh High Court’s Judicial Commissioner Lee Swee Seng instructing the law enforcers to submit a progress report on the first week of every month until they succeed in returning the child to her mother.

Subsequently, Perak police chief Datuk Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani said the police are currently on the hunt for Indira’s ex-husband.

Insisting that the two courts are equal, Musa said the Shariah custody order still stands.

“Article 121(1A) of the Federal Constitutions say that the position of civil and Shariah courts are the same. This means the civil courts absolutely cannot usurp the Shariah courts’ scope of powers,” Musa added.

The article states that High Courts “have no jurisdiction in respect of any matter within the jurisdiction of the Shariah courts”.

The IGP’s current instructions are contrary to his previous assertion that children at the centre of interfaith custody battles could be placed in childcare centres to ensure fairness in a bid to sidestep conflicting custody orders from the both the civil and Shariah Courts.

He had come under fire for stating that police have been forced into inaction as the institution is “sandwiched” between the two legal systems.