German judge invokes Koran, denies divorce

Politics International Politics
1

Dumb, da-dum-dumb.
Judge should know better than to confuse secular and religious codes, or to allow the religious to take precedence.

[quote=“Yahoo News”]A German woman judge has refused a Moroccan-born woman permission to file for divorce by interpreting the Koran as allowing husbands to beat their wives.

“Where are we living? Woman judge allows beating in marriage… and invokes the Koran,” said a front-page headline in Germany’s top-selling Bild newspaper, reflecting the widespread angry reaction on Thursday.

“This Moroccan woman has the same right to protection from a violent husband as any German woman. Anything else would be misconceived sensitivity to the benefit of the husband and would amount to racist discrimination against the wife,” said the Tageszeitung daily.

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany also condemned the decision.

“The judge should have made a decision based on the German constitution instead of the Koran,” said spokeswoman Nurhan Soykan, who said that violence and mistreatment, regardless of the gender of the victim, were also grounds for divorce in the Islamic world.

A court in the western city of Frankfurt on Wednesday upheld a complaint of bias against the judge lodged by the lawyer of the 26-year-old woman, who has two children.

The woman had filed for immediate divorce on the grounds that the husband, also of Moroccan origin, regularly beat her and threatened to kill her. The claims were backed up by a police report.

But the female judge, who has not been named, made clear in a letter that the wife’s bid had little chance of approval because, according to her, Islamic law allowed a man to strike his wife.[/quote]

2

I wonder why the authors (both of that Yahoo piece and of the Bild headline) thought it was necessary to emphasize that this was a woman judge. Was it “You’d think that a woman judge would have more sympathy for a woman being beaten”, or “Look what kind of idiotic decisions you end up getting when you let women be judges”? Probably the former, I suppose. But it did strike me as odd.

As far as the judgment is concerned, well, it’s completely absurd, of course. But it really doesn’t surprise me very much. Sadly. I think we’re going to see more and more of that sort of thing in Europe in the coming years.

3

I wondered over that emphasis as well.

I am somewhat surprised, though more disappointed than anything else. I’ll be more concerned if we start seeing more intrusion of religious codes serving the majority of the population.

This decision is unjust and ill-serves an individual, but should be easily reversed. If majority religious codes are promulgated from the bench, that’ll be more generally dangerous.

4

I’m more interested in the rationale used for applying Islamic law. Was it simply that they were Muslims? Was there a choice of law in the marriage contract? Implied perhaps? If so does German law allow people to contract out of the legal ramifications of physical abuse? Did they enter into the marriage in Morocco? and if so is Islamic law the law of Morocco? I don’t know much about the German legal system, but there’s got to be some reason she found it appropriate to apply Islamic law.

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[quote=“http://www.expertlaw.com/library/family_law/islamic_custody-3.html#70”]7.0 - Recognition of Divorces Obtained in Secular or Foreign Courts

Shari’a courts do not recognize divorces obtained in secular courts of law. In addition, an Islamic divorce obtained outside the home country of the husband may not be recognized by that country’s courts. For example, Egyptian divorce law requires that if one of the parties to a divorce is Egyptian, Egyptian law is the only enforceable law and the divorce action must occur in Egypt. “As for the Egyptian law stated, in relation to the enforced law in personal affairs cases, marriage and divorce, the act 131/1948 civil, article 13, paragraph 1, stated that the law of the husband country, at the date of concluding marriage contract is enforced on the sequences of marriage, and the article 14 of the said law, stated that (in the cases stated in the above mentioned articles, if one of the couples is Egyptian, the Egyptian law is the only enforced law.)” [81]

One devout Muslim American woman divorced her Egyptian husband under Shari’a law within the United States and then married another Muslim man. The Egyptian man abducted their three-year-old son to Egypt and accused the woman of infidelity because the initial divorce was not concluded in Egypt . The Egyptian court denied her custody of their son and found that her second marriage proved her infidelity. She received the following legal notification in response to her efforts to gain access to her son:

As for infidelity [that] was committed between the defendant, who professed Islam [the Muslim American mother], and [her new Muslim husband], in the presence of official document, the marriage contract, before being divorced or divorced by the claimant [her Egyptian ex-husband], so she committed infidelity and polygamy. The punishment of the said crime, by virtue of Allah Holly Sharea [sic], is stoning till death or keeping her in house till death.[82] [/quote]

Perhaps the German judge is right in some way. If the Moroccan law is the same as the Egyptian law, then the divorce will not be recognized in Morocco. If the woman is living in Germany, yet is Moroccan, she will then be unable to return to Morocco for fear of being stoned to death.

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In the making … she’s been withdrawn from the case and already stated she does herself not understand why she made that reference. Blame is put on psychological problems 10 years ago a policman shot his ex girlfriend in her office during an alimony case.

Verdict of her superiors regarding her decision: “unvertretbar”. That is legal German language and in plain terms means “no way”.

Here an article from the so called mindless left-wing SPIEGEL about the case: spiegel.de/politik/deutschla … 85,00.html

And here the reaction of its so called mindless left-wing audience: forum.spiegel.de/showthread.php?t=1351

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That judge should lose her law license.

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The “woman judge” thing is just a peculiarity of the translation from the German (which sometimes adds feminine endings for female members of “male” professions). Don’t read too much into it.

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Forget about that. “Richterliche Unabhängigkeit”, “Richter auf Lebenszeit” and all that … worst that can happen is she will be appointed elsewhere. But as family court is already kind of a dumping ground I don’t see where else they could put her. Early retirement comes to mind … what was her age again?

10

Funny thing is, I have not read this in any German language newspaper…

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I think you’ll have huge difficulties finding a single serious German language newspaper which didn’t run this story!

Google News search on “Koran” and “Richterin” (female judge): 604 distinct results

This week’s “Der Spiegel”:

“Mecca Germany - The silent Islamization”

I’m wondering what that’s about… :wink: (it won’t arrive here until tomorrow).

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Hmmm, guess you got me there, but how come it was not in any online newspaper? At least not the ones I read…

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The judge should be stoned.

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I think it’s pretty clear that she was.

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I think it’s pretty clear that she was.[/quote]

:laughing: It’s the best explanation I’ve heard yet.