News
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Call for divorce law change causes stir
* Rights groups ask govt to legislate in line with proposals
* Minister says govt will fill vacant CII posts and refer matter back to councilISLAMABAD: The country’s top Islamic advisory body has urged the government to amend divorce laws to give more say to women, triggering a controversy with religious hardliners vowing to resist the move. The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) proposed to the government at the weekend that a divorce should go into effect within three months of a woman’s request. Existing laws allow a husband to divorce his wife verbally in private but CII recommended it should be done in writing. Rights groups: Rights groups called on the government to frame the laws in line with the CII’s recommendations. “These recommendations are no doubt very positive, sensible and logical and the government must implement them forthwith without any fear of bigotry,” Iqbal Haider, secretary-general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Reuters. “The government is duty bound to take such issues to legislation,” said SM Zafar, chairman of the Human Rights Society of Pakistan. “The woman has a right to demand divorce as is already practiced under the principle of Khula and the Council has formalised this practice by a process of Ijtihad,” he said in a statement. “Similarly, the registration of divorce procedure . . . is an improvement in the existing system of law and should be undertaken immediately.” Hardliners, however, branded the changes un-Islamic and at odds with shariah. “The council is trying to invent a new shariah,” said Mufti Munibur Rehman, a leading cleric who signed a statement with other hardliners criticising the CII. “They are trying to create anarchy and chaos in the country and if they are not stopped then I fear a movement for enforcement of true Islamic shariah would be launched throughout the country.” “Council for Islamic Ideology is crossing its constitutional limits by recommending un-Islamic reforms in the law,” said Hanif Jalandhry, the secretary general of the Alliance of Organisations of Islamic Schools. CII Chairman Prof Khalid Masood told Online the council had discussed the recommendations for a year and a half before submitting them. “Recommendations for amendment in prevailing laws require support of a minimum of eight members,” he said, adding the CII currently consists of 10 members who include religious scholars from various schools of thought. Government: But the government appears to be trying to avoid controversy for the time being, and Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi said the government did not support the recommendations of CII. “It was not the decision or viewpoint of the government but that of the members of the CII,” he told parliament. “No legislation would be made contrary to the constitution and Islamic injunctions,” he said in response to a point of order by Sahibzada Fazal Karim from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N). Kazmi said the CII had only eight members instead of the recommended 20, and that the government would fill the 12 vacant posts and refer the matter back to the council. agencies/tahir niaz
Courtesy Daily Times