Federal Court allows appeal by SIS over deviant fatwa ruling

PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court here has allowed an appeal by Sisters in Islam (SIS) in its dispute against the Selangor religious authorities over an edict that labelled the company as “deviant”.

In a majority decision, Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who chaired a five-judge panel said it set aside the decisions by the Court of Appeal and the High Court.

The panel allowed the appeal only to the extent of the “usage” of the edict on the company.

The women’s rights group and its co-founder Zainah Mahfoozah Anwar had filed a judicial review seeking an order to quash the fatwa, but lost their case at the High Court in August 2019 and the Court of Appeal in March last year.

The Court of Appeal decided against them by a 2-1 majority decision.

They had named the Selangor State Fatwa Committee, the Selangor Islamic Religious Council (MAIS) and the Selangor government as respondents in their judicial review.

The fatwa, gazetted by the Selangor state government on July 31, 2014, had declared that SIS Forum, any individual, as well as groups that adopted the deviant ideologies of liberalism and pluralism, as deviating from the teachings of Islam.

It also ordered that any publications containing liberal and plural views of Islam should be banned and confiscated and further directed the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to censor social websites which go against Islamic teaching and laws.