Kassim Ahmad: Will the Judge uphold the Law?

by Din Merican

Octogenerian Kassim Ahmad

‎Last week December 30, 2014, amidst the gloom of the loss of the Air Asia flight QZ 8501 and the National Security Council’s unpreparedness for the massive floods, Malaysians rejoiced when the Court of Appeal pronounced judgement in the Borders Bookstore case. It was the best news for that week. It was a nice closure for 2014.

Nik Raina Nik Abdul Rashid

But the central figure in the Borders’ case, Nik Raina Nik Abd Rashid, ‎was far from euphoric. The Borders management was very measured in their elation. In fact, even in victory, Borders seem to extend an olive branch to JAWI. Borders’s Chief Operating Officer Ms Yau Su Peng pleaded for JAWI’s compassion to end this whole episode by withdrawing the Syariah prosecution against its employee. That is how reasonable these persecuted people are.

So, isn’t it time that JAWI and its Minister of Religious Affairs, Jamil Khir Baharom, respect the two pronouncements by the KL High Court Judge and Court of Appeal, the second highest court in the country, that had categorically found that JAWI had acted illegally?

Last  December  19, 2014, the KL High Court had to postpone delivering it’s judgement when the A-G Chambers filed a late submissions in Kassim Ahmad’s case. Public intellectual and civil society activist Kassim Ahmad had sued JAWI when JAWI illegally crossed the borders of four states to arrest him in his house in Kulim, Kedah. Kassim accused JAWI of brutalising him, dumped him into a van ala Mossad style kidnapping, boarded him on a midnight flight to LCCT Sepang and then interrogated him to the wee hours of morning before dragging him to a wrong court to prefer charges against him.

The offence alleged to have been committed by Kassim was a syariah High Court offence but JAWI charged him in‎ the syariah subordinate courts because in JAWI’s haste to arrest Kassim in Kedah, JAWI did not check that they did not have a syariah high court judge on duty that day. All the syariah high court Judges were on leave.

To make matters worse, the offence for which Kassim was charged by JAWI in Putrajaya  was not even an offence in his home state of Kedah.‎ In fact, the Fatwa that Kassim was supposed to have violated is a Federal Territories Fatwa which applied to only residents of the Federal Territories. In other words, there is no similar fatwa in Kedah because the state of Kedah did not consider Kassim’s utterances or academic views as wrong. Also, the Kedah Syariah Act did not have the same provisions as the Federal Territories Syariah Act! Can you see how confusing that can be? But JAWI couldn’t care less.

And so, we will know what the Kuala Lumpur High Court will decide on  January 6, 2015. That is the decision date for Kassim Ahmad.  We will know whether, in the name of God, JAWI can commit wrongful arrest ‎and get away with it. We will know whether the civil High Courts will follow what the Court of Appeal had held that no public authority whether celestial or ecclesiastical can commit wrong and get away with it. The Court of Appeal in the Borders’ Appeal had clearly stated all public authorities including JAWI must observe the law and judges sworn to protect the Federal Constitution must without fear correct these religious bodies when they do wrong.

Will Eminent 25 turn up in Court to support Kassim?

Will Judge Asmabi‎ Mohamed act to uphold the law and the constitution that she had sworn to do? Let us see and let us hope the Eminent 25 Malays will come to court to show their support for Kassim Ahmad on Tuesday January 6, 2015 @ 9am. It is time Malaysians stand together and demand that  the Courts to play its role as the last bastion of justice when all else have failed.