KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — The High Court will make known its decision on Nov 10 over the long-running saga moved by the Catholic Church to kick out several Islamic bodies from intervening in its ongoing suit against the government ban in using the word "Allah" in its newspaper.
Judge Lau Bee Lan made the decision in chambers today.
Lau had previously allowed several state Islamic councils to enter the dispute, which has grown political in nature, noting that the council acted as advisers to the sultans as the head of Islam in their respective states.
But the church argued that a Federal Court ruling last month had set the precedent which the High Court is duty bound to follow.
On Sept 3, the top court barred the Selangor Islamic Council from intervening in a class action suit between the Shah Alam City Council and some 150 landowners over Islamic burial land in Selangor.
The Catholic Church is suing the home minister for the right to use “Allah”, the Arabic word for God, in its newspaper, The Herald.
The weekly is published in four languages: English, Mandarin, Tamil and Bahasa Malaysia, which caters to the majority of Catholics from Sabah and Sarawak.
The Herald's priest-editor Father Lawrence Andrew claims the word “Allah” is specifically used to refer to “God the Father” based on the Catholic concept of the Trinity.
He has repeatedly stressed that the word cannot be interchanged with any other term in Bahasa Malaysia.
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