Divorced by law
A glitch in the Personal Status Law may be making it exceptionally difficult for women to prove they are divorced. Reem Leila reports
The Personal Status Law that came into being three years ago was championed as a legislative tool that would help ease complex marital issues. Recent evidence, however, seems to indicate that it may be doing the exact opposite. Apparently, the law's 21st article has made it extremely difficult for women to prove they are divorced. According to Mustafa El-Bedwehi, who heads the Cairo Personal Status Court, "between October 2001 and January 2003, 1.5 million women were unable to prove they had been divorced."
The article in question gives the sole right to acknowledge or notarise a divorce to the husband, who has 60 days to do so. Islamic Shari'a law, meanwhile, says the divorce actually occurs the moment a man says, "I divorce you", to his wife.
Because of this seeming contradiction, El- Bedwehi has attempted to revoke Article 21 via the Supreme Constitutional Court. El- Bedwehi says the article eliminates a basic woman's right. "Even if she has hundreds of witnesses," he says, "this article makes it impossible for women to officially prove that they are divorced. Sometimes the woman even brings in her children and her in-laws to try to prove that her husband has divorced her, but the cases are always immediately rejected."
According to the old Personal Status Law no 25, in place since 1929, women only needed two witnesses in order to file a case to prove their divorce.
Most of the problems stemming from the new law occur when the husband tries to deny that a divorce has occurred. According to El- Bedwehi, "This is what happens 99.9 per cent of the time." As a judge, he says, there's nothing he can do to help women who say they have been divorced, or bring witnesses to prove it, even when he knows they are telling the truth. The law stipulates that the only reliable word on the matter belongs to the husband.
With an increasing number of such cases coming to his attention every day, El-Bedwehi says, "it's about time this farce is stopped."
Zeinab Radwan of the National Council for Women's (NCW) legislative committee told Al-Ahram Weekly that she had problems with the article even before it was passed into law. She also foresees it causing even more confusion in the future. For one thing, she says, husbands can register a divorce on a different day from its actual occurrence. This tends to complicate matters when it comes to the Islamically stipulated three month waiting period during which a marriage can be saved without the divorce becoming official. "How will this period be calculated?" Radwan asks. "From the date the husband really divorced his wife or from the date the divorce was officially notarised?" The resulting confusion means that according to the Shari'a, the woman is considered a divorcee, while according to the law, she is not. "The husband can use this against his wife and force her to live with him," Radwan said, "even though she is not really his wife anymore." Matters become even worse when a husband completely denies that a divorce has occurred.
Radwan and others argue that even though the constitution gives men and women equal rights and duties, the controversial article gives the husband rights that a wife does not have. According to lawyer Maged El- Sherbeni, that means the article is unconstitutional. "It has forced women to resort to illegal, complicated and prolonged procedures just to prove their legal right. Passing the article was a serious legislative mistake," El-Sherbeni said.
