Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark yes­ter­day called on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi to de­fer the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Mar­riage) Bill 2016 to al­low civ­il so­ci­ety groups and re­li­gious bod­ies to give their views on amend­ments to the leg­is­la­tion.

Mark said that even though the bill was be­ing de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate, the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and oth­er re­li­gious groups were not con­sult­ed and "peo­ple were now threat­en­ing to take this mat­ter to court."

Hav­ing ex­am­ined the bill, Mark said the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) had is­sue with the $50,000 fine and sev­en year im­pris­on­ment pro­posed in the bill to be "dra­con­ian, op­pres­sive and ex­ces­sive."

Clause 27 (b) of the bill states that a per­son who wil­ful­ly and know­ing­ly solem­nise the mar­riage of a per­son who is un­der the age 18, com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on con­vic­tion and in­dict­ment to a fine of $50,000 and im­pris­on­ment of sev­en years.

Mark said the AG will make de­ci­sions on sev­er­al sec­tions of the Mar­riage Act, Hin­du Mar­riage Act, Mus­lim Mar­riage and Di­vorce Act and the Or­isha Act for thou­sands of cit­i­zens and "ta­ble those reg­u­la­tions in Par­lia­ment" which the UNC was against "since peo­ples' rights were be­ing in­fringed by this piece of leg­is­la­tion," Mark said in his con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate in the Sen­ate.

Mark said the UNC had tak­en is­sue with chil­dren be­ing mar­ried at the age of 12 and its leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had clear­ly out­lined its po­si­tion on the rights of women, girls and boys in May 2016.

He said the UNC felt that whether by tra­di­tion or cir­cum­stances that child mar­riages should not be per­mit­ted by so­ci­ety or al­lowed to con­tin­ue and it was their "in­ten­tion to re­new the process of con­sul­ta­tion" which be­gan un­der the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion "to en­sure that this po­si­tion is sup­port­ed by statute," since the is­sue af­fect­ed a large sec­tion of so­ci­ety.

In re­new­ing the UNC's po­si­tion, Mark called on the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty with re­sources to pro­tect chil­dren from statu­to­ry rape.

"So let me make it clear that the UNC, as it re­lates to con­tract mar­riage, is com­mit­ted to what the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al put in the leg­is­la­tion as 18 years and over."

With re­gards to con­tract of mar­riage, Mark said the UNC has pro­posed "18 years....but we have an ex­cep­tion. With the con­sent of the par­ents, judge, the in­volve­ment of the child and with the pro­vi­sion of le­gal aid if they do not have the means."

How­ev­er, Mark said chil­dren "be­tween 16 and un­der 18 must be giv­en that right once there is parental con­sent...once there is ju­di­cial in­volve­ment...once there is coun­selling in­volved...once there is the child...the child must have a say."

He said par­ents who do not have the fi­nan­cial ca­pac­i­ty must be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty through Le­gal Aid. "That is a rea­son­able po­si­tion by the UNC."

Stat­ing that if the bill was not passed soon the coun­try would not face any sanc­tions, Mark ad­vised the Gov­ern­ment "to take its time and have this mat­ter re­ferred to a body that is well es­tab­lished un­der our Stand­ing Or­ders so that there can be the hear­ing of the views of dif­fer­ent or­gan­i­sa­tions and in­di­vid­ual in­ter­est groups."

Mark said while Al-Rawi held con­sul­ta­tions be­fore he pi­lot­ed the bill, he need­ed to give the Hin­du, Mus­lim, Chris­t­ian and Or­isha groups "a spe­cial place in your con­sul­ta­tion to en­sure that their views are prop­er­ly con­sid­ered. You can­not bring them an au­di­ence packed with a num­ber of civ­il or­gan­i­sa­tions and give them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be con­sult­ed."