Apostasy in Islam and identity cards in Malaysia

Abstract

Shakespeare’s Juliet may declaim she would love Romeo by whatever name he is identified; to her, he is the ‘rose’ that would smell just as sweet regardless of his name. The Malaysian Court of Appeal would disagree vehemently with Juliet; for the court, the individual’s name in her National Registration Identity Card (‘NRIC’) is everything; the individual herself does not exist for purposes of legal proceedings if identified by other than her NRIC name, even if the person is before the court. In Anne Theresa de Souza v Majlis Agama Islam, Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor & Ors and other appeals [2010] 3 MLJ 748, the court dismissed the appellant’s attempt to record her abjuration of Islam in her NRIC on this technical ground without considering its merits. This paper respectfully argues that the court erred both in law and procedure in arriving at this decision.