Hadi claims certain judges influenced by ‘legacy of colonisers’

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang said previous judges like the late former lord president Salleh Abas did not entertain efforts to get rid of Islamic law.

PETALING JAYA: PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang claims there are certain “unwise” judges who possess a mindset and intellect “influenced” by Malaysia’s former colonisers.

While the Marang MP did not name anyone specifically, he said previous judges like the late former lord president Salleh Abas did not entertain efforts to sideline Islamic law.

“There are judges who are ‘unwise’, whose minds and intellects are influenced by the legacy of colonisers,” he said in a Facebook post.

The Perikatan Nasional deputy chairman said Muslims must oppose efforts to mislead them from the “true Islam.”

“This is because the sin of insulting Islam is greater than the sin of insulting the courts,” he said without further elaboration.

Hadi’s statement follows the apex court’s decision last Friday in favour of a petition filed by lawyer Nik Elin Zurina Nik Abdul Rashid to annul 16 provisions in the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code (I) Enactment 2019 on grounds of inconsistency with the Federal Constitution.

A nine-member Federal Court panel chaired by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat reached a majority decision of 8-1 that the state assembly did not have the authority to approve the 16 provisions in the enactment as the offences fell under federal law.

However, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Abdul Rahman Sebli dissented and held that the constitutional challenge brought by lawyer Nik Elin Zurina and her daughter, Tengku Yasmin Nastasha Tengku Abdul Rahman, was an abuse of the court process.

Tengku Maimun said the case was not intended to undermine Islam or the shariah courts but was merely to question whether a state assembly can pass laws without overstepping the powers given to it by the Federal Constitution.

She said there was therefore no issue of the shariah courts being “buried”, as alleged by lawyer Yusfarizal Yussoff.