MAJLIS AGAMA ISLAM WILAYAH PERSEKUTUAN

On the court record

Illustrates how the courts police the boundary between the civil and Syariah systems, determine the correct approach to jurisdiction over religious-status questions, and resolve challenges touching religious identity and Islamic administration.

The Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan (the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council) appears in this corpus in roles including respondent, intervener, defendant and amicus curiae, in litigation at the boundary between the civil and Syariah systems and the administration of Islamic affairs in the Federal Territories. A significant matter engages the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Federal Court under Article 4(3) and (4) and Article 128(1) of the Federal Constitution, concerning the validity of provisions of State Syariah criminal legislation, in which the Council participated as amicus curiae to assist the court. A recurring administrative-law strand concerns judicial review of decisions touching religious status and identity, including whether the remedy-based or the subject-matter approach determines which court has jurisdiction, and applications for declarations and orders regarding a person's religious identity and the documents that record it, where the Council is joined together with the National Registration Department. The corpus also engages constitutional questions such as the meaning of the words 'be defended' in Article 5(3) of the Federal Constitution and whether a claim discloses a reasonable cause of action, and it includes the Council's participation as an intervener to protect its interest in matters of Islamic administration. Because the Council administers Islamic religious affairs in the Federal Territories, it is characteristically named where a decision, jurisdiction or identity question touching those affairs is in issue. The matters are decided across the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court. Collectively the decisions in which the Federal Territories Islamic Religious Council is a party illustrate how the courts police the boundary between the civil and Syariah systems, determine the correct approach to jurisdiction over religious-status questions, and resolve challenges touching religious identity and Islamic administration. Several of the reported matters also concern whether a claim touching Islamic administration discloses a reasonable cause of action and whether it is properly brought in the civil court at all, so that the decisions turn as much on jurisdiction and justiciability as on the substantive religious question. Across these matters the Council appears as the authority whose decisions and jurisdiction the courts locate within the constitutional framework.