MARANG, May 27 – PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang said the action of DAP lawmakers disputing his tabling of a Private Member’s Bill in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday on the Syariah Courts (Criminal Jurisdiction) (Amendment) Bill 2016 was unbecoming and showed that DAP wanted to be enemies with Islam.
Abdul Hadi, who is also Marang MP, said DAP’s immediate angry reaction after the tabling of the bill clearly showed their rudeness and anti-Islam stance. He said although there were other non-Muslim political parties like MCA, Gerakan and MIC who sometimes disagreed with the Muslims’ agenda, they were more decorous and civil when disagreeing.
“DAP has shown its anti-Islam attitude. DAP has no manners and it straight away jumped and opposed (the motion), wheras the motion has nothing to do with non-Muslims. I also regret that PAN (Parti Amanah Negara) is being used by DAP, breaching its own religious boundary for political expediency,” he told reporters at the office of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, here, today.
Abdul Hadi had tabled the Private Member’s Bill to seek empowerment of the Syariah Courts, and he proposed that Section 2 of the bill be replaced with a new section. With the amendment, the Syariah Courts will have jurisdiction over Muslims, and in the case of offences involving matters listed in Item 1 of the State List under the Ninth Schedule of the Federal Laws.
However, even before Abdul Hadi tabled the bill, a number of opposition lawmakers including Anthony Loke (DAP-Seremban), Teresa Kok (DAP-Seputeh), Chong Chieng Jen (DAP-Bandar Kuching), Khalid Abdul Samad (PAN-Shah Alam) and Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj (PSM-Sungai Siput) questioned why Hadi’s motion was allowed to be tabled before the others as it was at No. 15 and last item in Parliament’s Order Paper at yesterday’s sitting.
Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia allowed the motion to be tabled, using his discretion as Dewan Rakyat Speaker. Asked whether the tabling of the Private Member’s Bill was a political gimmick in the run-up to the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections, Abdul Hadi said it had nothing to do with politics as it was not his first attempt to table the motion.
He said if it’s a political gimmick, it should scare PAS due to the possibility of losing non-Muslim votes, but this has nothing to do with the upcoming by-elections as the motion had even been brought to Parliament in 1995. The bill had also been listed in the Order Paper three times since last year.
