By Joseph Masilamany, Penang
MALAYSIA’s federal court has rejected a state government petition that sought to legitimize the conversion of two children to Islam, which was carried out without their Hindu mother’s consent.
The Federal Court on April 9 ruled that the Perlis state government’s review petition has “no merit” and reaffirmed that conversions without the consent of both parents are unconstitutional.
The ruling concludes the eight-year legal battle of Loh Siew Hong, a Hindu mother who fought for custody of her three children and later challenged their conversion to Islam, which occurred without her knowledge.
The federal court’s ruling endorsed its earlier decision in the same case, which asserted that changing a child’s religion without the expressed consent of both parents is unconstitutional.
Hong lost the case at the state High Court in 2022 but moved to the Court of Appeal, which ruled the conversions invalid.
However, the Perlis state appealed, and the Federal Court upheld that decision on May 14, 2024. In a last-ditch effort, the state filed a review petition in October 2024, resulting in the latest ruling.
The review was filed under Rule 137, a rarely invoked provision allowing the Federal Court to revisit its own decisions in exceptional cases to prevent injustice or abuse of process.
In the earlier ruling, the Federal Court had warned that allowing Perlis state’s arguments would effectively “encourage the unconstitutional practice of unilateral conversion to persist.”
The judgment echoed the 2018 Indira Gandhi case, which also established that both parents must consent before a minor child can be converted to another religion.
In the case of Hindu mother Gandhi, her three children were converted to Islam by her estranged husband without her consent.
The court deemed the conversion illegal and recognized the children as Hindu, marking it a benchmark decision for similar cases.
The Gandhi case ruling also confirmed that the consent of both parents is necessary to convert a minor child, and conversions without such consent are unconstitutional under Malaysian law.
With the latest ruling, Hong’s children also remain Hindus in the eyes of the law, legal experts say.
Perlis, the smallest state in Malaysia, is a Muslim-majority state, with 87 percent of its 300,000 people following Islam. At least 10 percent follow Buddhism. Hindus, Christians, Taoists and atheists together form the remaining three percent. – UCA News
