What exactly is this draft bill about?

(News Terupdate) - The draft law proposing a US$50,000 deposit to be imposed on expatriate men seeking to marry Indonesian Muslim women originated in the Ministry of Religious Affairs in about 2006.

The 2008 draft bill proposes to abolish not only contract marriages (nikah mut`ah) commonly misused to justify sexual relations with foreign and Indonesian clients, but also to terminate nikah siri, another form of religious marriage used to morally legitimize (but not legalize in civil law) a second, third or fourth Muslim marriage, commonly misused to avoid charges of adultery and sin in forms of marriage not in conformity with strict Islamic rules on polygamy.

The drafting of the law was influenced by an Egyptian law requiring a lower deposit directly payable to Egyptian women and not involving state management of funds.

The Egyptian law permitted 173 such marriages in 2007 in cases where the age difference between bride and groom was greater than 25 years, on condition that partners were screened to ensure a genuine marriage and a deposit of $8,000 was made in the wife´s name in the Egyptian National Bank.

This is different from the proposal of the Indonesian Religious Affairs Ministry that $50,000 dollars be handed over by foreign men wishing to marry Indonesian Muslim brides to be held by the state for 10 years, potentially generating more than $50 million per year.

Paragraph 142 (3) of the draft law is the key provision stipulating the $50,000 deposit, along with explanatory notes as to its administration, to be retained by the state for ten years in a sharia bank.

The conditions of repayment are not yet clear.

Andrew Sriro, practicing family lawyer in Jakarta and author of Sriro´s Desk Reference on Indonesian Law, 2009, described the proposed Rp 500 million deposit payment by expatriates wishing to marry Indonesian women as “an outlandish, xenophobic assault on personal freedom and human rights, which is designed to discriminate against Indonesian Muslim women.”

He continued, “The Indonesian constitution of 1945 guarantees equal freedoms and protection under the law for all Indonesian citizens and foreigners alike. This proposed law flagrantly violates this basic constitutional principle”.

“The result will be that mixed marriages would be consummated overseas, whilst couples will refrain from registering their marriages with the Indonesian civil registry and consequently Muslim women will be deprived of the benefits of their community property interests in 50 percent of marital assets as a result of their inability to prove their marriage valid before an Indonesian court.”

There was no reasonable basis to conclude that an Indonesian woman would be any more economically disadvantaged in the event of a divorce on the basis of her marriage to a foreign man as opposed to her marriage to an Indonesian man, he concluded.

“Every person has the right to acknowledgement of fair and equal treatment under the law, but this proposed law discriminates against Muslims. The Constitutional Court will surely strike this down”.

Mark Hanusz, director of Equinox Books, the biggest English-book publisher in Indonesia, and married to artist Anna J Coto, underlined the need to respect the law.

“I am a guest in Indonesia, not a citizen. I respect the laws of the country. If this is what the people
of Indonesia decide through their representatives in Parliament, then
I have to respect this and either comply with the law or leave the country.”

But what happens to the $50,000 deposit in the event of the death of one or both of the partners, divorce or resettlement in another country? Could the deposit requirement be enforced retrospectively on mixed marriage couples who married before the law was passed? Would the law be enforced upon long-stay or short-stay visitors?

The parliamentary process to amend the legal framework for marriage in Indonesia may have political and legal twists and turns just as in the Bank Century case, with complex realignments of liberals and conservatives, modernizers and traditionalists.

A contentious bill claiming religious justification — but from a secular civil ministry criticized by Muslim leaders for mismanagement of haj funds — may not provide a firm foundation for constructive change.

Rulita Anggraini, chairperson of PerCa Indonesia, an Indonesian mixed-marriage organization, recently said that if this debate is to focus on the protection of women, then the amendment and proper enforcement of protection measures in relation to the 1974 Marriage Act, applicable to all citizens and foreigners without discrimination in conformity with the Constitution, would provide a comprehensive basis for reform.

Posted in: Indonesia News