PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang's recent call to remove colonial-era laws, on the stated grounds that they impede fuller implementation of Syariah law, disregards the historical and constitutional realities of Malaysia's nation-building.
MCA maintains our longstanding position that constitutional supremacy and the rule of law are non-negotiable, and that Malaysia is a nation of diverse races, religions and cultures whose coexistence the Federal Constitution was built to protect.
As Malaysia's founding Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, stated in 1958: "This country is not an Islamic state as it is generally understood; we merely provide that Islam shall be the official religion of the State." That founding position has anchored our nationhood for nearly seven decades and remains as valid today as it was then.
Since independence, Malaysia has retained and developed a Common Law system derived from the United Kingdom, adapted to the country's plural circumstances. For decades it has underpinned judicial independence, procedural fairness, legal protection, equality before the law, and long-term stability — conditions that also matter directly to livelihoods, as they underwrite the investor confidence Malaysia's economy depends on.
Framing Common Law and Syariah implementation as opposing forces under the banner of "decolonisation" is constitutionally unfounded. It should be noted, for balance, that Syariah currently operates within State List jurisdiction over Muslims; a proposal to displace Common Law wholesale is a materially different and far larger claim than incremental Syariah reform, and deserves to be examined as such.
The Federal Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation. Article 4 provides that any law inconsistent with it is void to that extent. Article 3 states that Islam is the religion of the Federation while expressly guaranteeing that other religions may be practised in peace and harmony; the courts have long held that this provision governs ritual and ceremonial matters, not the basis of our legal and administrative system. Article 11 further guarantees freedom of religion. These were not incidental provisions, they were the deliberate architecture our founding fathers built to make one nation out of many communities.
Elevating the doctrine of a single religion to supreme law would not "decolonise" Malaysia, it would dismantle the very compact that gave Malaysia its independence. MCA calls on all Barisan Nasional and unity government partners to state plainly, and together, that constitutional supremacy and the rule of law are not open for renegotiation.
CHAN QUIN ER
MCA INFORMATION CHIEF
