PUTRAJAYA: An eight-year ordeal for a director of a company which published a book said to have gone against the Quran and hadith has come to an end.
This follows a Federal Court decision by a three-member bench today to refuse leave to an appeal application by the Selangor religious authorities and the state government.
“This is our unanimous decision. Sorry, we are not with you,” said bench chairman Zaleha Yusof to Selangor assistant legal adviser Siti Fatimah Talib, who represented the Islamic Religious Department (Jais), its director-general, enforcement chief, Selangor shariah prosecution chief and the Selangor government.
This means the six legal questions posed by the applicants did not cross the threshold of Section 96 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964 as they were not novel.
Zaleha, who sat with Zabariah Mohd Yusof and Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, also ordered the applicants to pay RM10,000 in costs to company director Ezra Zaid and ZI Publications Sdn Bhd.
Siti Fatimah had earlier submitted that Ezra could be prosecuted for whatever offence allegedly committed by the company under the Selangor Shariah Criminal Enactment.
She said the company was an “artificial person”.
“Section 3 of the Interpretation Act states that ‘person’ includes a body of persons, corporate or unincorporate,” said Siti Fatimah, who was assisted by state legal officer Muhammad Haziq Hashim.
She said leave ought to be granted for the court to clarify if the common law applies to shariah law to lift the corporate veil of a company.
Lawyer Fahri Azzat said the questions posed had been dealt with by a previous Federal Court hearing as shariah law only applied to persons professing the religion of Islam.
“A corporation cannot speak Malay or any Malayan language and cannot profess Islam,” he said, citing a passage from the case of Kesultanan Pahang v Sathask Realty Sdn Bhd.
Senior federal counsel Maisarah Juhari, who represented the federal government, said it was not taking a position as it was only a nominal respondent.
Ezra told reporters later he was relieved following the apex court’s decision to dismiss the leave application.
“I feel great as the judges supported last year’s Court of Appeal ruling in our favour,” said Ezra, the son of former law minister Zaid Ibrahim,
Fahri, who was assisted by lawyers K Shanmuga and Nizam Bashir, said he hoped the shariah prosecutor would drop the criminal charges against Ezra.
He said the High Court would also assess damages payable to Ezra, as ordered by the Court of Appeal.
On Sept 25, Court of Appeal judge Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid, who chaired a three-member bench, allowed the appeal by Ezra, who published “Allah, Kebebasan dan Cinta”, the Malay translation of Canadian author Irshad Manji’s work “Allah, Liberty and Love”.
Umi had said the conduct of the state religious authorities would lead to the “law of jungle and rule by ulama”.
Ezra, in his suit, had asked for compensation for mental distress, agony and torture when he was under the watch of Jais’ enforcement officials.
On March 7, 2018, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur dismissed Ezra’s bid to challenge the religious authorities’ action against him for publishing the book.
Ezra claimed trial at the Shariah Court on March 7, 2013, under Section 16 of the Shariah Criminal Enactment.
In 2012, the home ministry banned Manji’s book, saying it contravened the teachings of the Quran and hadith.
The books were also seized during a raid by Jais on Ezra’s publishing firm, ZI Publications.
