MMDA: Who Is Blocking Reform Of This Discriminatory Law?

By Ameer Faaiz –

Ameer M. Faaiz

Sri Lanka’s Muslim women are being denied family and other rights available to other women under this country’s constitution. The government committee set up nine years ago to reform the out-dated and discriminatory Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) has finally made its recommendations for change. But six months later, the government has taken no action. Why this urgently needed reform is being blocked is a mystery. Or is it?

The Report of the Justice Saleem Marsoof’s Committee on reforming the MMDA was handed over to the Ministry of Justice on 22ndJanuary 2018. While the Minister of Justice, Thalatha Athukorale, deserves credit for having have persuaded the committee to conclude its deliberations and submit its report, that the Minister herself continued to sit on it without taking the reform forward remains a mystery, and speculations abound. The Ministry of Justice released the report on its website only on the 18thJuly, the day before Justice Marsoof was to explain the recommendations, including their variants, to Muslim MPs, on invitation.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of the recommendations are unanimous were lost on the Minister. Yet differences of opinion amongst the members of the committee remain on some important matters which demand reforms. They are crucial to the rights and equality of Muslim women in our country.

Most of the areas where there is variance also have a direct impact on the constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights of citizens and the state’s obligation to uphold them. Hence the Minister should have referred the report to the Cabinet of Ministers for necessary follow up action without prevaricating.

The ACJU:  a veiled threat of incitement

Why the delay? What happened at the 19thJuly meeting with the Muslim Ministers and MPs casts light on this mystery.

Minister Rishad Bathiudeen joined the meeting mid-stream and is understood to have prevailed upon the other Muslim Parliamentarians to invite the All Ceylon Jamiyyathul Ulama (ACJU), the self-appointed group of Islamic theologians, to explain their stance. This was totally unnecessary and without any legal basis. Agreeing to this was a typical manifestation of male chauvinism. The signed report contains the ACJU’s recommendations as well. The ACJU has no special or legal status to make any further input in the matter.

Furthermore, the Muslim Parliamentarians including Ministers are duty bound to acknowledge the diversity of views within the Ulamas or theologians. But, most importantly, they must respect the views of the most important stakeholders in the reform process: the women who have been adversely affected by the discrimination and abuse permitted and continuously perpetrated under the MMDA in violation of the spirit of Sri Lanka’s constitution. There are also the other men who hold different opinion to that of the ACJU but well within Shariahand Fiqh (deep understanding).

The MPs would do well to know that the women have met the ACJU on more than one occasion and presented the ground realities and the abuse women are subjected to. Yet the ACJU has completely failed to acknowledge their testimony or to learn anything from the women bearing witness to these injustices. It must be acknowledged unequivocally that, as a private male-only club, the ACJU is neither qualified nor entitled to represent the interests of women and or children.

Had the Muslim MPs applied themselves they would have realised that all the progressive reforms proposed in the Justice Marsoof’s Committee’s Report are within the limits of Islamic law (Shariah). There are examples of many Muslim countries that have reformed their family laws progressively.

Instead, the Muslim MPs, having invited the ACJU to contribute to their deliberations, were then subjected to a veiled threat by the president of the ACJU that his supporters would incite people through the mosques should the ACJU position not be accepted. Maybe this threat instilled the same fear in the mind of the Minister of Justice in relation to Muslim votes.

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