PUTRAJAYA: Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Abdul Rahman Sebli has described the mother-daughter duo who launched a legal bid to challenge provisions in Kelantan Syariah law as 'busybodies'.
He said this is because the petitioners Nik Elin Zurina Nik Abdul Rashid and her daughter Tengku Yasmin Nastasha Tengku Abdul Rahman did not have any locus standi in this matter.
"Their constitutional rights were not affected by the enforcement of the impugned enactment in Kelantan as they were never charged under any of its provisions.
"The petitioners also failed to demonstrate the actual controversy between them and the Kelantan state government or how they were affected by those provisions which came into force in 2021," he said.
Abdul Rahman said this in his dissenting judgment in the duo's legal bid to challenge whether the Kelantan state assembly was empowered by law to enact 18 criminal offences under a 2019 state syariah enactment.
Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, leading a nine-member panel of judges, delivered the majority verdict of 8-1, with Abdul Rahman being the only dissenting judge.
Other members of the bench were Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah, and federal court judges Tan Sri Nallini Pathmanathan, Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan, Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, Datuk Nordin Hassan, and Datuk Abu Bakar Jais.
Tengku Maimun, in a landmark ruling stated 16 out of 18 provisions under the Kelantan syariah criminal enactment were unconstitutional as the legislative powers of the Federal and State governments have been determined by the Federal Constitution.
Abdul Rahman also described the duo's application as abuse of court process as this court has no basis to hear the merits of the case from the first place.
"The petitioners failed to meet the threshold required for this case to be heard before this court," he said, adding that the government through the Attorney-General's Chambers (A-GC) did not become a party in the hearing.
He also questioned the absence of Attorney-General (AG) in this case, which he said should be the one who initiated the challenge.
"We are not sure what the A-G's stand is on this," he added.
The constitutional challenge was initiated by Nik Elin Zurina Nik Abdul Rashid, a lawyer born in Kelantan, and her daughter Tengku Yasmin Nastasha Tengku Abdul Rahman on May 25, 2022.
They utilised Article 4(4) of the Federal Constitution to directly approach the Federal Court, listing the Kelantan state government as the respondent.
The duo contended that the power to legislate on criminal matters belongs exclusively to Parliament, with state assemblies only given the right to enact laws concerning the Islamic faith.