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Liberal Rights versus Islamic Law? The Construction of a Binary in Malaysian Politics
Author(s) -
Moustafa Tamir
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
law and society review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.867
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1540-5893
pISSN - 0023-9216
DOI - 10.1111/lasr.12045
Subject(s) - law , secularism , political science , legal realism , politics , philosophy of law , injustice , sociology , comparative law
Why are liberal rights and I slamic law understood in binary and exclusivist terms at some moments, but not others? In this study, I trace when, why, and how an I slamic law versus liberal rights binary emerged in M alaysian political discourse and popular legal consciousness. I find that M alaysian legal institutions were hardwired to produce vexing legal questions, which competing groups of activists transformed into compelling narratives of injustice. By tracing the development of this spectacle in the courtroom and beyond, I show how the dueling binaries of liberal rights versus I slamic law, individual rights versus collective rights, and secularism versus religion were contingent on institutional design and political agency, rather than irreconcilable tensions between liberal rights and the I slamic legal tradition in some intrinsic sense. More broadly, the research contributes to our understanding of how popular legal consciousness is shaped by legal mobilization and countermobilization beyond the court of law.