Hudud should apply to sultan, too, says Umno man

By admin-s On Mar 23, 2015

(TMI) – The practice of having a special court for royalty should be abolished if hudud is enforced in Kelantan, as the sultan should also be subjected to the Islamic criminal law, said former Umno supreme council member Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.

Saifuddin said it was wrong to have different courts for different classes of Muslims, when hudud law should be applied to all servants of Allah.‎

‎”Hudud is divine law. If enforced, it should apply to all servants of Allah‎. We should not have a different court for different class of Muslim,” Saifuddin told The Malaysian Insider in a text message.

“In the current set up, the rulers may be brought to a special court. But Islamic laws do not differentiate people this way.”

The CEO of the ‎Global Movement of Moderates Foundation had yesterday asked on Facebook whether hudud laws in Saudi Arabia, Brunei and Kelantan also applied to their respective royalty.

Saifuddin followed this up with another post clarifying his original question, by saying in Malaysia there were two sets of court – one for the sultan, and one for ordinary citizens.

“In the current laws, the sultan will ‎be tried in a special court, and not the normal court that the rakyat are tried in,” said the former deputy minister of higher education.

“Hudud is a perfect set of laws from Allah. Hence, the sultan and the rakyat should be tried in the same court. That’s what I meant by my question in my previous status,” he said in his Facebook post.