On Monday (25 April 2022), the Member of Parliament (MP) for Petaling Jaya, Maria Chin Abdullah was sentenced to 7 days imprisonment by the Syariah High Court for contempt of court. As reported by The Edge Markets, Justice Mohamed Fouzi Mokhtar found the Petaling Jaya MP guilty of contempt of court for insulting the Syariah Court’s administration of justice through her comments issued on 5 September 2018.
The comments were in regards to the decision of the Syariah Court to jail Emilia Hanafi, the ex-wife of Naza Group executive chairman Datuk SM Faisal SM Nasimuddin for not abiding by the visitation rights for their 3 children given to the latte, and rescheduling those visits on her own. Maria had in a statement on 5 September 2018 titled “Emilia Faisal Hanifi’s sentencing proves injustice against Muslim women still exists in the legal system” referred to Emilia’s 7-day jail sentence and alleged that the Syariah legal system discriminated against Muslim women.
In his judgement for the contempt of court conviction, Justice Fouzi asserted that the Petaling Jaya MP’s actions in alleging that the court has discriminated against Emilia were without proper facts and highly misplaced. The Syariah High Court only adjudicated laws that have been passed by Parliament, which Maria herself is a part of as a Member of the Dewan Rakyat.
Justice Fouzi further said that Maria should’ve known better than the court only decides based on evidence adduced and after all procedures had been met. Hence, the court can’t accept the affidavit made by Maria that she had no intention to issue such a statement and that she was making ‘constructive criticisms’ of the Syariah Court.
Furthermore, Justice Fouzi allowed a stay of execution of the imprisonment sentence, pending the filing of Maria’s formal application to appeal at the Syariah Court of Appeal. This must be done within 14 days beginning 25 April 2022; the date on which she was supposed to begin the sentence.
Actually, the matter is more complex than what it seems on the surface, as the MP for Petaling Jaya had previously sought to challenge the contempt proceedings by the Syariah High Court. As reported by Free Malaysia Today, Maria filed a judicial review application before the High Court (Appellate and Special Powers) division to review the contempt charge on 5 May 2021.
However, this article is not meant to discuss the contempt of Syariah court conviction or the judicial review application against the charge by the PKR lawmaker, but to discuss the repercussions of the sentencing by the Syariah High Court. Specifically, whether the 7-day jail sentence would disqualify Maria from her Petaling Jaya Parliament seat.
Well, spoiler alert: It won’t. Here’s everything you need to know:
Relevant laws governing the disqualification of an MP
The most relevant law on Maria’s current predicament is the highest law of the land, the Federal Constitution. Specifically, it is governed under Article 48 of the Federal Constitution which prescribes the disqualification for the membership of Parliament.
Article 48 (1) (e) is the most relevant to the Petaling Jaya MP’s situation, whereby it is stated that:
Based on the provision, it is clear that the conviction of 7-days jail, while arguably quite humiliating for a lawmaker, would not disqualify that individual from the position of an MP. The Syariah High Court is definitely within the definition of the ’court of law’ as mentioned in Article 48, but the punishment simply didn’t meet the threshold prescribed by the provision to be disqualified.
To be disqualified as an MP, the individual must be sentenced to imprisonment of more than one year or a fine of more than RM2,000. Speaking of the latter, the punishment for a person found to be in contempt of the Syariah Court is a maximum of RM2,000 or imprisonment of up to six months.
Hence, even if Maria was sentenced to the maximum punishment under the Malaysian Syariah law for contempt of court, she would still not lose her MP seat. Moreover, should the PKR lawmaker hypothetically be sentenced to punishment by a court of law that exceeds the threshold set by Article 48 of the Federal Constitution, she would still retain her Parliament seat if the court allowed a stay of execution, which the Syariah High Court did in this particular instance.
This is according to Article 48 (4) (b) of the Federal Constitution as per below:
As per the mentioned provision, should an individual appeal a court sentence that would disqualify them as an MP within 2 weeks, they would only be disqualified 14 days after the court decides on the appeal. Hence, if the appeal process is not yet exhausted by the MP, they would remain as an MP.
In relation to that, this is the reason why former Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak is still the legitimate MP for Pekan despite being convicted by the High Court as well as the Court of Appeal in the infamous SRC International case. For Najib’s particular case, he would be disqualified as an MP should all the appeal for the SRC International case is exhausted as the punishment given far exceeds the threshold set out by Article 48 of the Federal Constitution.
Moving forward, the judicial review application by Maria at the High Court is one of public interest as it may open a Pandora’s Box regarding the overlap of powers between the Syariah Court and the civil courts in Malaysia. Speaking of which, the legal challenge by the Petaling Jaya MP will be heard on 26 May 2022 by the High Court.
Jamie is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
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