High Court stays ‘Allah’ decision pending appeal

By Debra Chong - The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 — The High Court today granted a stay on its own ruling that the Catholic Church can publish the word “Allah” to refer to God in the Bahasa Malaysia section of its paper, Herald.

Judge Datuk Lau Bee Lan made the decision in chambers after both lawyers for the government and the church came to a mutual agreement to freeze the decision for the case to be settled in the Court of Appeal.

Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail (pic), who took control of the case today, later told reporters that he had personally asked the church lawyers not to block his request for a stay “out of national interest”.

“We have applied and they consented to a stay out of national interest. The stay was allowed pending the disposal of the appeal at the Court of Appeal,” the top government lawyer said.

“This is premised on the fact that the appeal must be heard as quickly as possible,” he added.

“We also asked just now and Her Ladyship Datuk Lau said she will give her decision as quickly as possible,” the A-G replied when asked if the judge had indicated when the written grounds of her judgment, which are required for the appeal to be heard, would be made available.

Lawyer for the church, Benjamin Dawson, agreed with Abdul Gani's statements.

“At the request of the Attorney-General, the applicant, who is the Archbishop, consented to a stay of the court's order of 31st December on grounds of national interest,” Dawson told The Malaysian Insider.

He added that there was no “full-blown argument” involved.

Submissions in chambers were wrapped up within 15 minutes.

The court rejected an earlier attempt to intervene by lawyers for Muslim groups comprising six state Islamic Councils and the Malaysian Chinese-Muslim Association (Macma) who are supporting the Home Ministry's bid.

Lawyer Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar said their bid to address the court was rejected because the judge had also rejected their bid to intervene in the main case last Dec 31.

Zainul added that the state Islamic councils and Macma had yesterday and earlier today filed an appeal against that decision with the High Court Registry.