Kerajaan Negeri Perlis

On the court record

A State Government whose matters cover the dismissal of judicial-review and mandamus challenges, ordinary land and civil claims, and the constitutional question of unilateral conversion of minors.

Kerajaan Negeri Perlis (the Perlis State Government) appears in the corpus as a public-authority respondent in judicial-review, land and religious-conversion matters, and its appearances reflect the range of State-level administrative litigation. In matters framed in Bahasa Malaysia the court recorded the dismissal of originating summonses and of applications for leave for judicial review — for example that Mahkamah ini telah menolak keseluruhan permohonan kebenaran untuk semakan kehakiman (this court has dismissed the entire application for leave for judicial review) against the respondents, including applications for an order of mandamus, with no order as to costs, and in another the dismissal of a plaintiff's originating summons with costs of RM5,000.00 against each of several defendants.

In a Federal Court matter connected to the State the court addressed section 117(b) of the Perlis Administration of the Religion of Islam Enactment and the unilateral conversion of children to Islam, considering whether the Federal Court authority in Indira Gandhi was confined to the Federal Territories or applied in Perlis, and the authoritative interpretation of the relevant constitutional and enactment provisions. That matter situates the State within the wider constitutional debate on unilateral conversion of minors.

For a reader, the cluster is a compact illustration of State-Government administrative litigation: the leave threshold and dismissal of judicial-review challenges and mandamus applications, ordinary land and civil claims, and the State's involvement in the constitutionally sensitive question of the unilateral religious conversion of children. The State and its office-holders in their official capacity are named as they appear on the record; individual applicants are referred to by their procedural role only. The State's matters illustrate the two levels at which a State Government is litigated: the routine administrative challenges dismissed at the leave stage, and the constitutionally weighty question of the unilateral conversion of minors, where the interpretation of the State enactment against the Federal Constitution and binding Federal Court authority carries implications well beyond the individual applicants before the court.