DAP MP: Hadi’s Bill the key that unlocks hudud
(MMO) – PAS’s proposal to further empower the Shariah courts is not hudud per se, but would allow Islamic courts to enforce state legislation that are versions of the Islamic penal code, DAP’s Zairil Khir Johari argued.
The Bukit Bendera MP said PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang had cleverly worded his Bill to amend Syariah Court (Criminal Jurisdiction) Act 1965 to omit references to federal crimes, effectively avoiding conflicts with federal laws that would render the amendment unconstitutional.
He also argued that while the amendments would not include crimes such as theft and robbery, it would allow the Shariah courts to impose punishments such as amputation, whipping and indefinite imprisonment.
“Thus, with a large part of the hudud enactments activated, it would be wrong to say that the Bill is not about hudud,” he said in a statement.
Hadi’s Bill seeks to allow Islamic courts to hand down sentences harsher than the current limits of a three-year jail term, RM5,000 fine and six lashes of the whip on Muslim offenders.
Both Hadi and Umno that facilitated his tabling of the Bill have insisted that the proposal was not hudud, but only an upgrade of the Shariah courts’ powers to deliver stronger punishments for religious crimes.
Zairil insisted, however, that once amended, the Act would authorise Islamic courts to hand down any sentence short of the death penalty, effectively allowing the enforcement of hudud proper that he said would be trivial to introduce via state laws.
