KUALA LUMPUR: The Kuala Lumpur High Court has allowed Putrajaya’s application to retain eight Christian CDs which contain the word “Allah” pending the outcome of an appeal in the Court of Appeal next month.

The ruling comes a day after the Federal Court ruled that the Catholic Church weekly, Herald, cannot use the word in its Bahasa Malaysia editions.

But, senior federal counsel Andi Razalijaya A Dadi said High Court judge Datuk Asmabi Mohamad did not give grounds for why she allowed the stay application.

She made her ruling in chambers yesterday.

“Anyway, the Court of Appeal has fixed Feb 10 to hear the appeal filed by both sides,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Judge Datuk Zaleha Yusof last July ordered the return of the CDs to Jill Ireland, a Melanau clerk, but did not set a time frame for the order to be complied with.

She also ordered Putrajaya to pay Ireland RM5,000 in costs.

Putrajaya, however, filed a stay application against Zaleha’s decision. Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi affirmed an affidavit that he would not return the CDs on grounds of public interest.

Ministry officials confiscated the CDs from Ireland at the then low-cost carrier terminal in Sepang in 2008 and this prompted her to challenge the seizure in court.

The CDs, which Ireland had brought in from Indonesia for personal use, had titles such as “Cara Hidup Dalam Kerajaan Allah”, “Hidup Benar Dalam Kerajaan Allah” and “Ibadah Yang Benar Dalam Kerajaan Allah”.

She also asked for a declaration, saying that she had a legitimate expectation to exercise the right to use “Allah” and to continue to own and import such materials.

Ireland’s legal team argued that this case was not about Christianity against Islam, but about her constitutional right as a bumiputera Christian.

Putrajaya submitted that the minister had exercised his powers under the Printing, Presses and Publications Act 1984 to withhold the material if it was likely to be prejudicial to public order.

Putrajaya has appealed against Zaleha’s ruling.

Meanwhile, Ireland also filed an appeal against the High Court decision which failed to address her constitutional right to use the word “Allah”, as the court only ordered the CDs confiscated from her be returned.

Her lawyer Annour Xavier said yesterday several constitutional issues would be raised in the Court of Appeal through this case. But, he did not give specifics.

The Catholic Church’s long battle to use the word “Allah” in the Herald came to an end on Wednesday after the Federal Court dismissed its review application.

A five-man bench led by Tan Sri Abdull Hamid Embong unanimously held that there had been no procedural unfairness in the apex court’s earlier decision not to grant leave.

He added that the threshold for the review had not been met. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 23, 2015.