Valentine's Day announcement from the Appeal Court

[viques]

Sorry, can't do links BUt it is on the BBC news site.

The Appeal Court has decided that contrary to an earlier ruling Islamic marriages are not legal marriages in the UK. So Muslim women who have not also had a register office wedding in the UK are not legally entitled to the same legal safety net as women who have had both an Islamic and a civil wedding.

Huge implications for Muslim women, and their children, if their marriages break down. I think their needs to be some retrospective legislation to protect women who think they are legally married when it now appears that in UK law they are not.

Sorry, don't know why there is a vote, didn't opt for one.

This has been the case for decades though Viques. We discussed this on my degree course in the late 80s. To be legally married, a registrar needs to be there, whether that be in an RC Church, a registrars office, or a synagogue. You don't need a registrar to be present in a CofE church as the vicar is licensed normally to perform marriages.

I don't agree with retrospective legislation. The case has always been clear (it has to me anyway) that you need to be legally as well as religiously married. What I do think might be worth doing, is making a civil ceremony prior to a religious one compulsory, unless you are marrying in a CofE church.

Eh? This has been known for years. The woman concerned was a solicitor, not some ingenue.

Mick Jagger famously shafted Jerry hall with a nikah in Bali or some-such Muslim country & got out of legally divorcing her.

I went to my best friend’s wedding in the 90s and she had a marriage in a mosque and a registry office wedding all on the same day so even back then this was well known,

You can't just write legislation that says people of a certain faith who didn't actually get married in the past twenty years are now in fact legally married, for goodness sake! It's up to the individual to know the laws of the place they choose to marry to make sure everything is legal and binding.

I think similar applies to many overseas weddings. Lots of my children's friends have got married in Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc and have had to go through legal procedures or have a registry office wedding too

I watched a documentary about a while back hosted by, I think, Jonathan aikens daughter who is now a Muslim. It’s very complex as many didn’t want a change to this but the issue seemed to be the community intentionally misleading women so the religious leaders etc would specifically not point out it wasn’t binding in a legal sense.

Very sad for those caught out and a documentary worth watching if it’s still on iplayer.