Recent Federal Court judgement which reaffirms supremacy of Federal Constitution

This has somehow escaped the radar of the media (either that or I am the only one who have missed it). On a recent case before the Federal Court on 25 July 2007, between Latifah Bte Mat Zin vs Rosmawati Binti Sharibun, the presiding judges (Justices Abdul Hamid Mohamad, Arifin Bin Zakaria, and Augustine Paul) unanimously declared in their judgement to the effect that returns the supremacy of the Federal Constitution, that the right forum to determine a court's jurisdiction on constitutional grounds is the Federal Court (apex of the civil courts), the fact that Article 121(1A) of the Federal Constitution was introduced not for the purpose of ousting the jurisdiction of the civil courts in all matters pertaining to Islamic law, and that the syariah courts in Malaysia inhabits a position within our judicial space which is inferior to the higher civil courts (i.e. High Court, Court of Appeal, and the Federal Court). This judgement is aligned with all the previous judgements made by various judges before that fateful case of Soon Singh vs Perkim (1999) which started the downhill of judges simply washing their hands off cases involving even a slightest hint of Islamic matters. Read Malik Imtiaz's blog on this (so far he has only written the first part), as well as this letter to Malaysiakini by a reader.

Perhaps as what the writer of the letter has said, maybe the PM's wishy-washy position recently on the nature of Malaysia is, in a way, useful afterall. Judges could now take the hint from the PM and start upholding their oath to protect and defend the Constitution once again, and for the nation to start putting a stop to the worsening religious divide and reverse the dangerous Islamic extremist trend. We should just stop debating the nature of our nation, and accept Raja Nazrin's advice which is to keep to the spirit of the Federal Constitution. Afterall, that is the very basis for this nation's existence, and very likely its progress as well.