KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia’s top court on Friday struck down Shariah-based criminal laws in an opposition-run state, saying they encroached on federal authority. Islamists denounced the decision and said it could undermine religious courts across the Muslim-majority nation.
In an 8-1 ruling, the nine-member Federal Court panel invalidated 16 laws created by the Kelantan state government, which imposed punishments rooted in Islam for offenses that included sodomy, sexual harassment, incest, cross-dressing and destroying or defiling places of worship.
The court said that the state could not make Islamic laws on those topics because they are covered by Malaysian federal law.
Dual-track legal system
Malaysia has a dual-track legal system, with both government laws and Shariah — Islamic law based on the Quran and a set of scriptures known as the hadith — covering personal and family matters for Muslims. Ethnic Malays, all of whom are considered Muslim in Malaysian law, make up two-thirds of Malaysia’s 33 million people. The population also includes large Chinese and Indian minorities.
The case decided Friday was filed in 2022 by two Muslim women from Kelantan, a rural northeastern state whose population is 97 percent Muslim. The conservative Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, has governed the state since 1990.
Lawyer Nik Elin Nik Abdul Rashid, who brought the challenge to the state laws with her daughter, said the court’s ruling attested to the Malaysian Constitution as the supreme law of the country.
Hundreds of Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party supporters gathered outside the Federal Court calling for the protection of Shariah.
Malaysian media quoted Chief Justice Maimun Tuan Mat as saying the ruling does not dispute the position of Islam as the official religion and dismissing claims that the court was trying to curb the powers of Shariah courts.
The PAS is a member of the opposition bloc but is the single biggest party represented in Parliament. It also runs the governments in four of Malaysia’s 13 states.
The party favors tough Islamic legal norms and once sought to implement a criminal code known as “hudud,” which prescribes penalties such as amputations for theft and death by stoning for adultery. The federal government blocked the move.