The Court of Appeal agreed to issue an interim stay order to ensure that the fatwa is not enforced on SIS Forum or the appellants for now. — Malay Mail photo
KUALA LUMPUR (March 14): The Court of Appeal in a majority ruling today dismissed a challenge by Sisters in Islam’s (SIS) — via SIS Forum (Malaysia) Bhd — against Selangor’s 2014 fatwa which had labelled the company as deviant from the teachings of Islam.
The majority decision was made by the panel’s chair Datuk Has Zanah Mehat and Datuk Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali.
In reading the broad grounds of the majority ruling, Che Mohd Ruzima said the High Court decision — which SIS Forum had appealed — was correct.
“As a majority, we find no merit in the appellant’s appeal which justifies our intervention at the appellate stage. With that, the appellants’ appeal is dismissed, and the High Court’s decision is maintained. We use our discretion to make no order as to costs,” the judge said when reading out the broad grounds of his judgment online through the video-conferencing platform Zoom.
Datuk M Gunalan, the other judge on the Court of Appeal panel, gave his minority or dissenting judgment — which, among other things, viewed that the Selangor Islamic bodies could not apply the fatwa to SIS Forum (Malaysia) Bhd as it is a company not capable of professing the religion of Islam.
SIS Forum’s lawyer Datuk Malik Imtiaz Sarwar then immediately applied for the status quo to be preserved while his clients pursue an appeal at the Federal Court.
The Court of Appeal then agreed to issue an interim stay order to ensure that the fatwa is not enforced on SIS Forum or the appellants for now. — Malay Mail
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