Hudud should apply to sultan, too, says Umno man

Global Movement of Moderates Foundation CEO Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah says hudud law should be applied to all servants of Allah. – The Malaysian Insider pic by Seth Akmal, March 23, 2015.

The practice of having a special court for royalty should be abolished if hudud is enforced in Kelantan, as the sultan should also be subjected to the Islamic criminal law, said former Umno supreme council member Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah.

Saifuddin said it was wrong to have different courts for different classes of Muslims, when hudud law should be applied to all servants of Allah.‎

‎"Hudud is divine law. If enforced, it should apply to all servants of Allah‎. We should not have a different court for different class of Muslim," Saifuddin told The Malaysian Insider in a text message.

"In the current set up, the rulers may be brought to a special court. But Islamic laws do not differentiate people this way."

The CEO of the ‎Global Movement of Moderates Foundation had yesterday asked on Facebook whether hudud laws in Saudi Arabia, Brunei and Kelantan also applied to their respective royalty.

Saifuddin followed this up with another post clarifying his original question, by saying in Malaysia there were two sets of court – one for the sultan, and one for ordinary citizens.

"In the current laws, the sultan will ‎be tried in a special court, and not the normal court that the rakyat are tried in," said the former deputy minister of higher education.

"Hudud is a perfect set of laws from Allah. Hence, the sultan and the rakyat should be tried in the same court. That's what I meant by my question in my previous status," he said in his Facebook post.

‎Saifuddin had tweeted in the past that he disagreed with the PAS-led Kelantan government's hudud bill, and that he stood by the stance of scholars who believed the enforcement of hudud should not be a priority.

PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang is seeking to table a private member’s bill in Parliament during the current sitting ending on April 9, which, if passed, would allow the Kelantan government to enforce hudud in the state.

The bill is to amend the Shariah Courts Act (Criminal Jurisdiction) 1965, which limits the power of the Shariah courts to a maximum penalty of RM3,000 in fine, five years’ jail and six strokes of the rotan.

An amendment is required in this law to enable Kelantan to carry out hudud law, after the state assembly on Thursday unanimously passed the Shariah Criminal Code II Enactment 1993 (Amendment 2015).

- TMI