“Unfair and deepens sectarianism”.. Why did the amendment to the Personal Status Law spark anger in

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[size=52]“Unfair and deepens sectarianism”.. Why did the amendment to the Personal Status Law spark anger in Iraq?[/size]

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2024-07-24
The Iraqi Council of Representatives postponed, in its regular session held today, Wednesday, headed by Acting Speaker of the Council Mohsen Al-Mandalawi and attended by 194 representatives, the first reading of the proposed Personal Status Law, due to parliamentary disagreements over it, as signatures were collected to remove the amendment paragraph from the agenda of today's session.[/size]
[size=45]“Amending the Personal Status Law is considered an unfair amendment, as the current law is one of the best laws in the region first, and in Iraq second, and all countries aim to have legislation that reaches the Iraqi Personal Status Law, but we are surprised every now and then by the inclusion of the amendment on the agenda of the House of Representatives,” according to MP Nour Nafie.[/size]
[size=45]“But because I am a representative of women first and society second, I collected signatures to lift this unfair paragraph from the law. The required number was 25 signatures, but I was able to collect more than that, because this amendment will cause an increase in divorce cases, support out-of-court contracts, and deepen sectarianism among members of society,” Nafeh added.[/size]
[size=45]What is modification?[/size]
[size=45]“The amendment to the Personal Status Law that was presented today in the House of Representatives for its first reading is that when the husband and wife go to the marriage contract, they choose the sect they want, whether Jaafari or Hanafi. This situation existed in the old law No. 188 of 1959, which specified the sect, but the name of the sect was not written, but rather it was written upon request and the process for the Shiite marriage contract. If it was Sunni, it was written at the earliest of the two dates (divorce or death), and then the wife deserves the deferred dowry,” says the legal expert, Ahmed Al-Abadi.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Abadi explained to Shafaq News Agency, “As for the current amendment, the law requires the Sunni and Shiite endowments to submit codes, and these codes are submitted 60 days after the new amended Personal Status Law comes into effect. These codes contain controls and legal provisions specific to the Jaafari (Shiite) and Hanafi (Sunni) schools of thought.”[/size]
[size=45]He explains that “these codes are submitted to the House of Representatives and approved and are considered a reference or legal basis for the personal status courts, which in fact represent the current personal status law. That is, when the citizen first begins the contract, he can choose whether he is Sunni or Shiite in the contract, and thus these Sunni or Shiite codes apply to him according to his choice. As for the marriage of minors and others, this is governed by the code, that is, the opinions of the clerics are what govern this issue.”[/size]
[size=45]He points out that “the law has determined that the blogs are written according to the common opinion in the Jaafari and Hanafi schools of thought. However, if there is no common opinion, then one should refer to the highest authority, Sistani, or in other words, the highest authority who has the most followers in Iraq. As for the Sunnis, they refer to the Fatwa Council affiliated with the Sunni Endowment.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Abadi continues, “There is also, with the same amendment, marriage outside the court, and this is in Article 10, paragraph five of the current Personal Status Law, which punishes whoever marries outside the court, that is, with the master, but in this law it is seen that when the marriage is with a cleric or with the Sunni or Shiite endowments, then the court must approve it, that is, there is no punishment for whoever marries outside the court, but rather the court must approve it immediately.”[/size]
[size=45]“Unfair to women”[/size]
[size=45]For her part, the head of the “Hi” Foundation for Cultural and Media Development, Israa Tariq, confirms that “the amendment is unfair to women and deprives them of their most basic rights, such as their right to inherit real estate, depriving girls of a full share of the inheritance, and legalizing the marriage of minors according to this amendment. Instead of the age of 18, it has become 9 years, and the disaster is the marriage of thighs, which the amendment did not address.”[/size]
[size=45]Tariq says, “Depriving women of alimony and other things that make women tools and men the masters, this amendment, if passed, would take us back to the pre-Christian era, not to mention that this amendment did not address other religions and how they will be treated. Therefore, the law is rejected by civil and feminist circles because it calls for the disintegration of the family and not its preservation.”[/size]
[size=45]She continued, “It is certain that this amendment would have caused an increase in divorce cases, because the husband has full authority and the right to refuse to give alimony to the woman if she does not allow him to enjoy herself. One of the reasons for the increase in divorce cases is the increase in temporary marriage cases, as if it were a legalization of betrayal and giving it a legal cover that is far removed from the honorable rights of women.”[/size]
[size=45]Tariq added, “Another reason for the increase in divorce cases is the marriage of minors. If the percentage was high in the past because it was not done through the courts and because there was a certain awareness among the few families to guarantee the rights of their daughters, this paragraph will be cancelled by the amendment and marriage will be from the age of 9 years, meaning marrying a girl in the third grade of primary school, which leads to depriving her of her right to education, life and choosing a partner, since marriage is done by the guardian. What raises the question is, is a girl at this age capable of forming a family and taking care of it? Therefore, this amendment calls for the destruction of the family.”[/size]
[size=45]The Iraqi Communist Party warned today, Wednesday, against voting on the draft amendment to the Personal Status Law in today's session, considering it to be a consecration of sectarianism and denominationalism.[/size]
[size=45]MP Shabal Hassan Ramadan had previously warned against changing a paragraph in the Personal Status Law that grants custody of the child to the father instead of the mother, noting that this was more dangerous than an “atomic bomb.”[/size]
[size=45]The current Iraqi Personal Status Law No. 188 of 1959 stipulates that “the right to custody is granted to the mother based on the text of Article 57, Paragraph 1, which states that (the mother has more right to custody and upbringing of the child).”[/size]
[size=45]However, a member of the parliamentary legal committee, Mohammed Al-Khafaji, had previously expressed his dissatisfaction with the “opposition” facing the amendment of the Personal Status Law, especially Article 57 related to child custody, and stressed that the amendment seeks to achieve justice and protect the family from disintegration amid the increase in divorce cases.[/size]
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