Proposed reforms - Prospects and Consequences

As of today, the Muslim community is targeted by global forces, using a well-structured approach called Islamophobia, both locally and internationally. It is the responsibility of the present government to ensure any initiatives it makes on behalf of the Muslim community is not fallen on the agenda of those who get benefited by spreading Islamophobia. Also, the government must make sure those initiatives do not diminish any privileges owned by the Muslim community. In this background, the reforms of the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act (MMDA) become critically important. Meaning, that the proposed reforms of MMDA must mitigate the shortcomings, also there should be a clear emphasis on whether these reforms validate and re-assure the privileges the Muslim community enjoy.  

The previous government’s agenda was to demolish all the personal laws in the country in order to implement the concept of one country one law. However, due to increasing pressure, the previous government had stated that they are not willing to demolish/eradicate the personal laws in the country. Besides this crisis, there is a necessity to reform the MMDA to overcome its existing drawbacks, which was constantly emphasized over the years. There was growing doubt among the Muslim community about the previous government’s approach to reform MMDA - was the previous government attempting to penetrate the one country one law agenda by using the MMDA reforms?  

We could observe that the proposed reforms to MMDA are not transparent. It is not available for public dialogues. Although MMDA is a personal law based on Islamic religious principles, it seems, the opinions of religious experts on the said reforms have not been obtained. This situation led us to think with a reasonable doubt whether it could be a part of an agenda to oppress the Muslim minority in the country. Despite this situation, we found some recommendations which have been made to the former minister of justice by the advisory committee for the reforms (disclosed unofficially by the committee in a webinar).  

When those recommendations for the reforms of MMDA are scrutinized, we have quite a few concerns about its key characteristics particularly the age of marriage, rulings regarding ‘Wali’ (consent of a guardian), polygamy and changes proposed on the quasi system, because we fear that the proposed reforms have the potential to negatively impact in our community.  

The Muslim community in Sri Lanka believes that the present government is not going to impose any marginalized approaches on the minority, unlike the previous government. We also strongly believe that the present government will genuinely put its effort to rebuild ethnic harmony for the better future of our motherland.   

On that note, we would like to bring to the notice of the Honorable Minister of Justice that, we Muslims in Sri Lanka have established a thousand years of history as a patriotic community in this island. Whenever the country has faced a difficult time we have proved ourselves as a community who always supported the rulers to overcome such difficulties.  

But unfortunately, in the recent past, our community faced many challenges in Sri Lanka. One among them is the proposed reforms to the MMDA. We all agree that the present MMDA needs to be amended, but we fear that the reforms proposed by the Ministry of Justice have certain elements which contradict our religious principles and also the proposed reforms have the potential to lead our people into new plights.  

Shifana Sharifudeen is a lawyer, researcher, and author. Shifana Sharifudeen pursued the Bachelor of Law at the University of Colombo, Attorney-at-Law at Law college Sri Lanka and completed the Higher National Diploma in International Relations at Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies.
 While Shifana Sharifudeen, at the core, registered as a law Practitioner, her work has achieved remarkable acceptance across multiple fields. She is an active member of the team “#strengthenMMDA”( https://www.facebook.com/StrengthenMMDA/ ). The purpose of #strengthenMMDA is to build proper awareness, educate our people and develop a rational understanding of the topic of “required reforms of Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act”