'In Malaysia, only the Constitution is supreme.' - Tun Mohamed Suffian Hashim, 1976.

Unfortunately, our Constitution is worth no more than the paper it is written on if anybody knows anything about it.

The Barisan National has, with its two-thirds majority in Parliament, treaded all over the Constitution with impunity over the years. The masses have little concept of the fundamental principles of the Constitution or their rights, and subject themselves to the whims of the executive without as much as a whimper.

Was it even constitutional to declare that Malaysia as an Islamic state?

The current prime minister backpedals from the outrageous declaration by Dr Mahathir Mohamad and has proposed a more palatable alternative, but the question remains. Malaysia, while not entirely secular in the conventional sense, is definitely not a country where Islam reigns supreme.

The Syariah courts are limited in powers and are state-bound. Certainly, Syariah laws in Malaysia do not address a substantial portion of present Islamic laws and jurisprudence. In fact, Malaysia's Syariah law regulates what is Muslim, not what is Islam. This is an important distinction as the state does not see itself as a nation under God or administering His word as law.

Hence, the various states do not have an obligation to ensure adherence to a particular faith. In more ways than one, the same argument applies to the current debate on morality laws.

Law is a punitive force, it is not rehabilitative. It controls only the external domains of living, not its spirit. We all know that laws 'may be private or public, municipal or international, constitutional or ordinary' but it is of a limited nature and it cannot 'encompass the whole of man's activity' (Appadorai, 1987).

To ask the law to govern every aspect of our lives would be totalitarian, although the idea does not seem to be unpalatable to some.

Our lawmakers can (and have) played a role in affecting morality, but the government (as well as the opposition) must remember that what they have achieved through legislation is subjected to the opinion of the populace who can demand its removal.

When a government proposes to push forward a law that cannot be fairly administered, is poorly executed and selectively enforced, is highly unpopular and immaterial to other issues of greater priority - it slowly digs into its own grave.

Thus, relating this to the question of Syariah law and other religious obligations turned into criminal acts when gone unobserved, we have to ask ourselves the right questions: should the state be responsible for 'crimes' against religious doctrines?

Some have framed the fight against morality laws between religionists (or fundamentalists) and humanists (liberals), but that's merely denominations talking. The real argument here is whether the state should be tasked with the job of making sure its people are good Shafie Muslims, Catholic Christians, Zen Buddhists or devout Hindus.

The state, as far as it goes, has been proven to be thoroughly inadequate and inept in resolving spiritual matters when it wields the big stick (the law).

Surely, what constitutes as individual private space and areas that the state has legal dominion in is negotiated all the time. One may think that one has to right to smoke whatever kinds of grass one likes, but the state clearly has a strong interest in discouraging a drugged workforce and

a substance-addicted community.

It is impossible for the law to have no moral dimension to it, but it is possible to have something immoral that the law cannot reach.

Without the right enforcement, civil, common, Syariah, canon or eccelestial laws are a mockery of justice. And contrary to what many people think, the term 'secular' is not a dirty word for it does not run counter to the principles of moral, morality or ethics - it merely acknowledges its worldly and temporal nature.

Secularity and secularism are just denominations, and if we seek to entrench ourselves in ideologue positions, we will only fuel a greater divide on the issue.

But the floodgates for Syariah law have already been opened. The question is now where to draw the line. There is no way the Quran and the Hadith will reign supreme in this land as long as the Constitution is still around, and it will take more than just declarations to change the fundamental nature of our nation.

The goal to have two sets of laws for the same population is still framed under the Constitution, and whether that goal is constitutionally sound should be tested at the courts. Are we all equal before the law? Not quite, in many ways more than one but sometimes, it takes a lot of legal proceedings to set things right.