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India-Pakistan
Court rules Pakistani Muslim women free to choose spouse
2003-12-20
The highest court in Pakistan has ruled that Muslim women can marry anyone they want, of their own free will.
As long as they're willing to have acid thrown in their faces, of course...
Hundreds of women are murdered by relatives every year in Pakistan for offending the family's honour, one of the perceived offences being marriage without family consent. The long-running debate over whether a Muslim woman has the right to marry someone of her choice began six-years ago when the Lahore High Court reopened a case already settled by the country's Islamic Sharia Court. The Federal Sharia Court in 1991 had declared that a Muslim woman was within her rights to marry of her own free will, with or without the agreement of her father or guardian, known in Islamic law as Wali. However, the Lahore High Court in separate decisions in 1997 declared that unless a woman had the permission of the Wali her marriage would be invalid. The couples affected by this ruling challenged the decision in the Supreme Court.
Posted by:Fred Pruitt

#6  Why be sorry? That's one of the problems, according to Arun. A well-connected man can often get the decision he wants, however contorted the analogies required to arrive at it. And you don't have one court system, but at least 4, which don't have to respect each other's rulings. Of course this leaves all sorts of land mine precedents around for the not-so-well connected...
Posted by: James   2003-12-20 10:22:37 PM  

#5  James: Family Law: relationship, marriage, succession, inheritance is basic. Societies developed their Law as they formed and tend to be conservative about them. The very words used to discuss these things (e. g., Mother / Father / Brother / Sister) tend to be among the oldest ones in any language. The apparent fluidity of Family Law in the US is a reflection of diversity, and the fact that we are still a very young society. But court decisions in this realm, once made, are respected by other courts, and changed reluctantly. The early-on decision to adopt English Common Law makes this conservatism necessary. To decide these things by fatwa, by definition subject to change without notice, strikes me as extraordinary. Or maybe this shows contentment with Sharia as long as it goes along with what you want. Been in a bitchy mood lately. Sorry
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds)   2003-12-20 1:51:02 PM  

#4  For Glenn (1): There are different meanings of interpretation. One meaning has to do with methods of study, and the other has to do with which rule or which anology applies. New rulings appear all the time, and frequently disagree with each other. If your library has
World of Fatwas by Arun Shourie you might find the book amusing.
Posted by: James   2003-12-20 12:46:26 PM  

#3  Wow! These are tough questions the court is facing. Have they decided a woman is (in theory) a person yet?

Sorta of like are Jews white? Technically yes but..... LOL!

(Yes I know, Eskimos, Ethiopian etc.)
Posted by: Shipman   2003-12-20 11:12:55 AM  

#2  Look, the fact that the couples who challenged the decision in the Supreme Court were still alive marks a real turning point. I mean, where were their brothers, fathers, etc. who had to do the Honor Killing!!
Posted by: SamIII   2003-12-20 9:10:34 AM  

#1  Islamic courts disagreeing about Islamic Law within the last decade? Wait a minute. My Britannica here has an essay on Islam that says,
...Ijma set the final seal of rigidity on the doctrine, and from the 10th century onward independent juristic speculation ceased. In the Arabic expression, "the door of ijtihad [interpretation] was closed."...
In context this means Sharia should be concrete now. Of course, it's from 1986, maybe Islamic thought has not changed in the last millenium over the years.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds)   2003-12-20 5:38:44 AM  

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