Qortbawi Refers Civil Marriage Draft Law to Cabinet
Caretaker Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi referred on Thursday the optional civil marriage draft law to the cabinet.
"If the law is put into effect, then civil marriage becomes applicable as an optional law in Lebanon,” Qortbawi told LBCI television.
“Then people will no longer have to travel to conduct the nonreligious unions abroad,” he added.
The minister pointed out that according to this draft law, the couple chooses the civil marriage law of a foreign country to govern all matters related to the union.
However, LBCI remarked that a part of the fees payed in return of this marriage will be given to religious authorities currently governing matters of personal affairs in Lebanon.
Legal expert Talal Husseini slammed this clause in the draft law, comparing it to “paying money in exchange for freedom.”
In April 2013, the Higher Committee for Consultations at the Justice Ministry responded to inquiries submitted by the Interior Ministry on the legality of civil marriage in Lebanon.
The committee reiterated its support for civil marriage in Lebanon.
The Interior Ministry had sent the inquiries to the Committee at the request of Qortbawi.
The Lebanese Supreme Council in the Ministry of Justice took an unanimous decision in February to consider legal all civil marriages conducted in Lebanon by people that do not have any religious affiliation.
The debate surrounding civil marriage was last year after Kholoud Succariyeh and Nidal Darwish announced in January that they had wed as a secular couple by having their religious sects legally struck from their family registers under an article dating from the 1936 French mandate.
Legalizing civil marriage has sparked debate among the country's political and religious authorities with President Michel Suleiman advocating it and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Miqati and Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani rejecting it.
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