President Suleiman tweets in support of codifying legal marriage in Lebanon! || Newspapers (Arabic)

The talk of the town these days is certainly the civil marriage contracted in Lebanon between Nidal Darwich and Khouloud Sukkaryeh which has attracted the attention of many a politician including President Michel Suleiman who has tweeted about this calling for the codification of civil marriage in Lebanon.
Bride and groom resorted to law 60 l.r. of 1936 (according to the numbering used by the French colonial powers back then) and which allows for individuals not following any confession to marry whilst following a procedure entailing a public declaration of their marriage 145 days before the event and ensuring that there are no objection to their union.  Following this step, bride and groom exchanged a civil  marriage contract at the private notary.
The director of the Civil National Initiative, Talal el Husseini, declared in a seminar organized yesterday on the right to contract civil marriage in Lebanon that with the completion of the procedure, the couple is now officially married and bound in a contract that is duly recognized by the law.  Husseini reiterated that the marriage contract does not need the approval of the Ministry of Interior to become valid.  It has already been entered in the civil register and a copy was sent to the legislative council since it is an unprecedented document.  The council’s opinion is only of a advisory nature and is not binding.
For his part, the Minister of Interior indicated in an interview given to An Nahar newspaper that his Ministry had already referred this request for civil marriage upon receiving it to the Ministry of Justice who has turned it down given the absence of a legal code to legislate it.  The Minister added that such request will never be approved.

Source: Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar, Al-Nahar 21 January 2013