The 29-year-old’s parents converted him and his siblings when he was eight.
The Taiping High Court says it falls solely under the shariah court’s jurisdiction to determine the validity of the man’s conversion.
The man’s parents took him to the Taiping district religious office on Aug 15, 2002, and converted him and his siblings to Islam. He was eight at the time.He also claimed that his family did not practise Islam after they converted, and that his parents regretted the decision to embrace the religion.He filed a suit before the High Court, seeking a declaration that he is not a Muslim and that his conversion into Islam was invalid.
Judicial commissioner Noor Ruwena Nurdin allowed the state government’s bid to quash the suit on grounds that the man should have pursued the conversion before the shariah court.“This court does not have jurisdiction to hear the matter as it falls squarely under the shariah courts’ jurisdiction to first determine the validity of the conversion,” she said.
“The court cannot speculate that, if he went on with , he might be ordered to go for ‘counselling’ like in the case of a 37-year-old woman,” Ruwena said.