On August 20, this year, the Federal Cabinet Division approved the draft bill titled Christian Marriage and Divorce Act 2019 to make changes in the more than a century old Christian Divorce Act 1869 and Christian Marriage Act 1872. This draft bill will be introduced in the National Assembly for further debate and deliberations. The proposed draft bill was prepared by the joint committee of the Churches in Pakistan and submitted to the Ministry of Human Rights a year ago. Concerned Christian citizens such as National Lobbying Delegation for Minorities and Civil Society organizations have been raising concerns about the need of the new proposed legislation in order to provide respectable grounds for divorce to Christians. The existing law allows adultery to be the only ground for dissolution of Christian marriage, which is in flagrant violation of article 14 of the Constitution of Pakistan that upholds human dignity as a fundamental essence of human being. Every sane mind will agree to the fact that proving adultery in the court of law is tantamount to character assassination and entails a number of difficulties, especially for Christian women in our patriarchal society. Furthermore, this law allows marriage of Christian couples, who are less than 16 years, that stands in blatant contradiction of the Child Marriage and Restraint Act in Pakistan, which set 16 years and 18 years as marriageable age for girls and boys respectively in Punjab. In addition to this, the procedure for solemnizing marriage needs to be modernized according to the contemporary contextual realities of today’s world.
The aforesaid draft bill still needs to incorporate a few changes that this present article aims to focus on, as was also deliberated and suggested by a small group including a Christian theologian, academia, lawyer and a human rights activist, led by Lahore based NGO Centre for Social Justice. The following suggestions were made.
The draft bill added brutality as a ground for dissolution of marriages, which is quite a harshest form of violence, instead violence as defined by Punjab Protection of Women against Violence Act 2016 needs to be added in order to provide protection to spouses against violence of all kinds.
Section 49, which says that Court to act on principles of Divorce Court in England, needs to be deleted because, divorce courts in England have different grounds for divorce than the proposed draft bill. Furthermore, colonial jurisdiction should not be added.
The draft bill added brutality as a ground for dissolution of marriages, which is quite a harshest form of violence, instead violence as defined by Punjab Protection of Women against Violence Act 2016 needs to be added in order to provide protection to spouses against violence of all kinds
Section 69, which sets the alimony of one-fifth of husband’s income should be replaced by one-fourth, in order to provide protection to women and children after divorce.
The repeated mention of the role of Registrar General in Section 19, 23, 37 and 42 to register the Christian marriages need to be omitted, as it will be an extra burden for Christian community to get their marriage registered, whereas, the Union Councils are directed by the Supreme Court’s judgment of 16 January 2019 to register Christian marriages. Therefore, registration with the Registrar General will only confuse and complicate the process. Same needs to be applied with section 2 by deleting the role of Registrar General for Births, Deaths and Marriages.
Section 9, which qualifies churches as the only place of marriages need to be omitted in order to allow weddings to be solemnized at places other than churches because restricting marriages to be held only in churches add financial burdens to the families as to support the cost of the church venue as well as accessing church building in villages situated in far flung areas is difficult.
According to Section 4, “every marriage between male and female, both of whom are Christians and having attained the age of 18 shall be solemnized…” This section restricts that both male and female to be Christian for marriage, which goes against the fundamental right of individual Christians to exercise their freedom of religion as guaranteed by the Constitution of Pakistan and as well as stipulated by Christian Marriage Act 1872. Therefore, Section 4 needs to be amended and read, as “every marriage between male and female, one or both of whom are Christians and having attained the age of 18 shall be solemnized…”.Same change needs to be inserted in section 17, which says that all marriages hereafter solemnized in Pakistan between the males and females both of whom profess the Christian religion be registered in the manner herein after prescribed. Here “both of whom” needs to be replaced by one or both of whom. It may also be dependent upon the churches jurisdiction.
The names of Churches need to be deleted from the preamble of the draft bill as it will create difficulties for those Christian denominations, whose names are not included and further become a cause of confusion.
While commenting on the draft bill, Jennifer Jag Jivan, Director Christian Study Centre Rawalpindi extends appreciation to the laudable efforts of the Ministry of Human Rights to get the bill approved in principle and emphasized that some recommendations need to be inserted when the bill reaches the Standing Committee after its approval from the National Assembly. More recommendations can be followed then. It is keenly expected from the government to further the process with the same level of interest and keeness in order to practically translate their commitment into concrete actions.
The writer is a freelancer