LAHORE: A discussion with stakeholders on the government-drafted Christian Marriage and Divorce Bill 2019 was held at a local hotel.

The event was organized by the Peoples Commission for Minorities Rights (PCMR) in collaboration with the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) where all stakeholders’ including those from the Christian community, lawyers, academicians were present. The proposed bill is currently being reviewed and vetted by the federal Ministry of Human Rights.

Peter Jacob, Executive Director of CSJ and Chairman of PCMR, said that the proposed law had been drafted by the government and was not a private member bill. Because of this, the stakeholders could request changes.

“Its draft has included many things which ought to be either improved upon, or removed altogether,’ said Mr Jacob.

He read out the marked clauses, which CSJ and PCMR had worked upon and spoke about the changes advised in the bill.

One of the basic problems in the bill begins from its preamble, where it mentions the names of several churches and gives them the status of being main churches. Jacob said that in this process, the bill is conveniently ignoring the smaller churches or denominations, and this is primed to cause rifts within the community.

Concurring with him, Advocate Javed Gill said that the bill’s preamble should instead give the rationale of why it is being introduced and who it is intended to benefit.

In Section 2-C, the bill suggests on defining who a ‘Christian’ is so that the law may be applied to him or her. However Jacob, in concurrence with other stakeholders, said that this would again become something of a sore point.

“Whoever calls himself a Christian must be regarded as one. Defining the term will limit it and every sect and denomination have their own ideas and schools of thought,” he said. “Apostle’s creed should be omitted from the bill so as not to create any dissent within the Christian community.”

Jacob added that the former laws spoke of the involvement of the Registrar General of being the record keeper of Christian marriages, but this was now an obsolete concept especially with the LG system and NADRA computerized records. “The registrar general does not have physical space left for these records anymore,” he said.

“Today all those who conduct a marriage between two persons (nikah khwans) must have computerized data, and this data they should then send to Nadra and UC while also giving copies of the nikah nama to the bride and groom.”

He said the prior laws of Christian marriage and divorce had two separate laws. However it should be consolidated now so that there is no confusion.

In Section 4, again, there was mention of both bride and groom being Christian, however the stakeholders agreed that this was putting an unnecessary limit on people who wanted to marry outside their community. They said it was wrong that in order to marry someone, people had to convert. He said that it was not there before and that it should be reinstated.

In Section 9, the place where marriage was solemnized was the Church, and anywhere else would require a special license and seal, which was also a very impractical move. “Often people like to get married at home or marriage halls and many cannot even afford to travel to church for a wedding. They should amend this.”

There is also a Free to Marry letter obtained from the church where a person is shown as single and eligible for marriage. But today as records are with Nadra, a certificate from the department would be better and make things more mainstream and equal. Also a six-month duration for the free to marry letter seemed to be too long.

The biggest challenge for Christian couples in getting a divorce is that they only have four grounds on which they can apply for divorce including brutality, infidelity (or marriage to another), insanity and conversion of faith.

“The procedure of divorce should not be made so difficult for couples, as there are many discriminations against women because of this in particular, and also it is wrong to be chained to each other in a bad marriage,’ he said. Couple should come forward after an agreement on an amicable or a o fault’ divorce,” said Jacob.

He also specified that the cut-off age for marriage in the law is 18 years for boys and girls. Pastors of various churches as well as other representatives were also present including Church of Pakistan etc.

Published in Dawn, August 28th, 2019