There is a need to amend child custody law, says MCA president

KUALA LUMPUR: The child custody battle between a Muslim convert and his Hindu former wife has led the MCA to call for the law governing the matter to be amended.

Party president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said a Federal Court ruling where both parents got one child each after the mother was previously granted full custody led him to believe that the law should be relooked again.

“We have to amend the law,” he told reporters here yesterday, referring to the Law Reform (Marriage & Divorce) Act.

Liow said that the laws have to be amended so that conversion cases involving Muslims can also be heard in the civil court.

The Transport Minister was speaking to the media after launching the International Road Assess­ment Prog­ramme (IRAP) at Menara Shell.

On Wednesday, the Federal Court found that the children - a boy and a girl - of S. Deepa and Izwan Abdullah had different ideas of which parent they wanted to be with.

In 2012, Izwan converted the children without Deepa’s knowledge in 2012.

He went to the Seremban Syariah Court where he was given custody of the children.

The High Court later gave custody of both children to Deepa, although Izwan took his son in April 2014.

Adding that both now seemed settled where they were, the five-man Federal Court panel ruled while citing the law that the court should not “disturb the life of the child”.

Liow said a Cabinet committee on conversion and custody issues was looking into details and talking to various groups to improve the Act.

When asked if a solution might be coming soon, he said the committee was working on it.

On another matter, Liow said the Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research had started its assessment of how safe roads here were.

“We hope that by next year, we should be able to have assessment, what is the star rating (of the roads) in Malaysia,” he said.

He said this after a speech where he said the Transport Ministry wanted to make sure that 75% of the country’s roads would have a three-star IRAP safety rating.

It is understood that a number of developed countries have assumed this standard, with Liow saying that many roads here were well-built and planned.