Syariah Court Essay

All Muslim in Malaysia are governed by the personal law and a few other enumerated matters which are by Islamic law as set out in the various state Islamic law administration statutes. They are obligatorily subjected to the Syariah and to the jurisdiction of the Syariah Courts. However, the Syariah is not applied to non-Muslims and there is no non-Muslim is subject to the jurisdiction of the Syariah Courts. The federal laws are basically English Common Law which is Civil law where else the state laws are mainly Islamic law. This is because Malaysia has a parallel legal system of Civil and Islamic laws. Administration of Islamic law is vested on the states and separate legislations could be found distinctively between the states with the various aspect of the Islamic law which includes Majlis Agama Islam who responsible for all the matters of concerning the Islamic religion, Mufti accounted to determine the Islamic Law, and Syariah Courts who responsible for the administration of justice. As to the position of the Syariah Courts, Abdul Hamid Mohamad FCJ, observed as follows:

‘A Syariah court in a State is

This is by means, as the jurisdiction of the Syariah Court should mainly would cover the family and domestic matters of Muslim. This was seen as an effect to the “Islam as religion of the Federation” clause. It was to prevent the cases to be heard in the High Courts which are that Court could have a concurrent jurisdiction to the subject matter under a Federal law. It was seen to be more of a “housekeeping” amendment. Moreover, the Ninth Schedule List II (State List) is also a provision for the creation of Syariah Courts which means the Ninth Schedule is the Schedule to the Constitution, i.e Parliament and State Legislature has its separate list of jurisdiction over all the