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Civil marriage in Lebanon, between law and practice
8-4-2019
Beirut Madinati member, lawyer Nayla Geagea, organized on April 3 a seminar entitled, ‘The right of civil marriage in Lebanon: between law and practice’. The purpose is to inform the debate on the civil marriage which has resurfaced recently by correcting misinterpretations of the constitution and laws. On the occasion, Geagea tackled Decree 60 L.R of the year 1936 related to the confessional system of religious denominations in Lebanon. According to Article 10 of said decree, in one of its provisos ‘Lebanese belonging to a religious sect subject to the ordinary right and Lebanese who do not belong to a sect, should submit to the civil law in matters related to personal status’. The importance of this article, Geagea explained, is that it recognizes the right of non-members of the 18 sects in the country to submit to civil law in personal status matters. Hence, Geagea added, “We have an absolute right to freedom of belief, mandated by the law and guaranteed by the Constitution, but which in practice is different.” Geagea pointed out that the right to choose the form of relationship with the State outside religious sects is also acknowledged by the Constitution, and applies as well to the right to civil marriage which does not require a law to attest it. Marriage contracts should be regulated within a framework of relevant legislations through the enforcement of a foreign law like the Cypriot law, she recommended. Lebanon is not a secular state, because it does not enforce citizens to civil marriage following the religious marriage, she said. This means, we admit to the pluralism and multiculturalism of the Lebanese people, which gives us an edge over other secular countries, she added, comparing the Lebanese model to the Swiss one, with a slight difference, that Lebanese sects correspond to linguistic groups in Switzerland. (Al Akhbar, April 6, 2019)
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- العربية
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