Cabinet Rejects Controversial Personal Status Draft Law

The Syrian council of ministers rejected a controversial draft of Syria’s personal status law, said a July 2 statement issued by the prime minister’s media bureau and published by the state-run news agency SANA.



The cabinet sent the proposed legislation back to the ministry of justice to be further examined in cooperation with all concerned parties, the statement said.



The legislation, which covers matters of marriage and divorce and is based on Islamic law, was met with a wave of indignation by women’s rights groups and Christian clerics in recent weeks.



The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights website, which led the campaign against the law, said on the day the decision was taken that the draft law had aimed at “creating sectarian strife and violated all basic rights” and was finally thrown in “the garbage” as it deserved.



Bassam al-Qadi, the website’s editor-in-chief, criticised authorities for not having rejected the legislation earlier and for preventing the media from discussing it.



Qadi urged the ministry of justice to consult the Syrian Committee for Family Affairs as well as the Women’s General Union – both are government institutions that had put forward plans for more modern legislation earlier – and other parties concerned in order to form a committee to design a new draft law.