Abdul Aziz Mohamad JCA

(delivering majority judgment)

1 The appellant was born on 8 January 1964 of Malay parents practising the religion of Islam. She was therefore born a Muslim and her name originally was Azlina bte Jailani. Claiming that she had never believed in Islam, that since 1990 she had believed fully in Christianity and had been attending Mass every Sunday, and that on 11 May 1998 she was baptised, and exhibiting the certificate of baptism, by an originating summons dated 15 May 2000, when she was 36, she sought in the High Court certain declarations against the Majlis Agama Islam Wilayah Persekutuan, the first defendant, and the Government of Malaysia, the second defendant. The declarations were sought on the basis of cl (1) of art 11 of the Federal Constitution, which guarantees to every person ‘the right to profess and practise his religion’, which she contended gave her absolute freedom to renounce Islam and become a Christian, which could not validly be restricted or controlled by any law, such as the Administration of Islamic Law (Federal Territory) Act 1993, by the Syariah Court, or by any other authority. The effect of the declarations would be to uphold her conte