Implementation of the Islamic Criminal Law in Malaysia: Prospects and Challenges

Abstract

First of all, I would like to correct a common mistake. Many people thought that Brunei has implemented hudud law. That is not correct. In fact, to this day, Brunei has yet to enforce that part of the Syari’ah Penal Code Order 2013 which contains hudud offences. Brunei has gazetted the law. The effective date has not been fixed yet. The most recent information I received from the Assistant Solicitor General of Brunei on 15th December, 2014 confirmed that the hudud law has not been enforced.  In fact, the provisions of the Syari’ah Criminal Procedure Code necessary for the implementation are still under discussion. If we want to talk about criminal law and what is now called “Islamic criminal law”, in the Malaysian context, we have to start from the Federal Constitution.