Apostasy and freedom of religion in Malaysia

Article 11 of the Malaysian Constitution states, in direct and simple terms, that ‘every person has the right to profess and practise his religion’. However, in the case of Lina Joy, the Federal Court ruled that the freedom to ‘profess and practise’ does not include the right of Muslims to convert out of Islam, which means that the state can criminalize apostasy without violating art 11. This chapter seeks to answer two questions about the state of constitutional jurisprudence concerning the freedom of religion in Malaysia: how did it get here and where should it go from here? Corresponding to these two questions, there are two parts to the chapter: descriptive and prescriptive. In the descriptive part, the chapter will argue that there are two opposing constitutional narratives about the freedom of religion in Malaysia: evolutionary versus revolutionary. In the prescriptive part, the chapter will endorse the evolutionary narrative.