Allah case: Federal Court rejects Catholic Church application to re-evaluate decision

The Federal Court has rejected the application made by the Roman Catholic Church to re-evaluate the preliminary decision made in June 2014.

The decision stated that the church is not allowed to make a plea against the decision made by the Home Affairs Ministry in banning the use of the word “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia weekly edition of The Herald.

Chief of panel and Federal Court judge, Tan Sri Abdull Hamid Embong said a re-evaluation could only be made in several circumstances.

“Re-evaluation of a judgement could only be made if there appears to be a bias situation, fraud or procedural unfairness and quorum failure in making a decision.

“The court has found none of the criteria was met for the judgement to be re-evaluated,” he said at the Federal Court in Putrajaya today.

Other judges in the panel are Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop, Tan Sri Hasan Lah, Datuk Ramly Ali and Datuk Azahar Mohamed.

The Roman Catholic Church had applied for a re-evaluation of the judgement made by the Federal Court on June 23 which died its application to be allowed to appeal the decision made by the Home Affairs Ministry which prohibited the usage of the word “Allah” in The Herald.

Meanwhile, the lawyer of the plaintiff Datuk Dr Cyrus Das said the plaintiffs respected the decision.

“To fight for this issue (usage of the word “Allah”) I believe it should be done using other methods,” said Cyrus when met by reporters.