Laysia 1957, Arts. three(1) and 11(1)). The Bisantrene site minority status of Christians is just not in doubt. At stake in the case was a long-established practice of utilizing the word Allah in their Malay language Bibles, publications, sermons, prayers, and hymns. This practice includes a extended historical lineage, dating back towards the 19th century, way just before the creation of the Malaysian nation-state. Early translations from the Bible, recognized in Malay as Al-Kitab, used the word Allah to refer towards the Christian god.3 Even so, amidst increasing Malay-Muslim nationalism, the Malaysian government moved to ban The Herald, a weekly Catholic newsletter, from using the word Allah in their Malay language publication. The Catholic Church challenged the ministerial order, arguing that the prohibition violated the Catholic Church’s constitutional ideal to profess and practice its religion, like the appropriate to manage its own religious affairs, and to instruct and educate its congregation within the Christian religion. Free speech violations had been also raised. The Church initially won at the High Court (Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur v Menteri Dalam Negeri Anor 2010, pp. 101D14D, 120I21H) but lost around the government’s appeal for the Court of Appeal (Menteri Dalam Negeri Ors v Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur 2013, pp. 4956, 5092, 5212). The Federal Court eventually denied the Church’s application for leave to appeal (Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur v Menteri Dalam Negeri Ors 2014, pp. 7894). Considerably, the Court of Appeal held that the use of the word Allah was not protected below the constitution because it was not an `essential practice’ (Menteri Dalam Negeri Ors v Titular Roman Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur 2013, pp. 512E ; Neo 2018b, pp. 5856). As an alternative, the court upheld the government’s justification that it was essential to prohibit the Catholic Church from employing the term Allah because it would otherwise trigger confusion towards the Muslim majority, which also makes use of the word Allah to refer towards the Islamic God. This has, at very best, a tenuous link to public order. Leaving aside the broader critique of the essential practice test, which originated from India (Sen 2010, pp. 407; Dhavan and Nariman 2004, p. 259; Neo 2018b), the Court of Appeal’s ruling clearly failed to give sufficient protection to religious minorities (Harding 2013, p. 12).four It will be intriguing to consider if an added minority suitable to linguistic identity could have buttressed the Catholic Church’s claim. As mentioned, Christians in pre-independence Malaysia have, for many centuries, practiced a culture of speaking and praying in the Malay language, which was the lingua franca of the region. A right to linguistic and cultural identity could give nuance towards the religious freedom claim, as it is not merely a proper to practice one’s religion based on the general and universal doctrines in the religion. As an alternative, the focus on minority protection may let an argument to become made that it truly is a precise way of practicing one’s religion, one that is definitely embedded within a linguistic and cultural context (Neo 2014, p. 756). This certainly begs the query as to regardless of whether a national language might be regarded as part of the linguistic interests of a minority group. One may well nonetheless argue that the extent to which the language itself creates a NKH477 References distinctive religious-cultural way of life must render it capable of getting protected as a minority interest. In other words, a.