Turkey court nixes religious marriage charge

ANKARA

 Turkey’s Constitutional Court has annulled a law that criminalized performing religious marriage without civil marriage.

The court, the highest legal body for constitutional matters, deliberated May 27 over a case in Erzurum province that resulted in the conviction of a young couple and an imam on the basis of the law.

Delivering its verdict Friday, the court said the legislation in question, which stipulates a prison term of 2 to 6 months, was in contradiction to the Turkish constitution.

It stressed that freedom of faith and conscience was a fundamental human right and created a personal sphere free from interventions by other citizens and the state.

An imam in eastern Erzurum province was found guilty last year of performing religious marriage without a civil marriage contract.

The incident surfaced after the couple applied to court over an unrelated matter, exposing their status as married but without a civil engagement recognized by the state.

The Erzurum court that heard the case charged the imam but did not convict him; instead, the judge applied to the Constitutional Court requesting that the case be mulled.

Family and Social Policies Minister Aysenur Islam said Friday the decision was to address a discrepancy between the legality of living together without marriage and the outlawing of religious marriage without civil marriage engagements.

“In the reasoned decision, the Constitutional Court says, ‘it is not considered a crime for people to live together without marriage but it is a crime for them to live together with religious marriage, there is a contradiction between these two, and we need to make the two cases equal,’” Islam said.

The minister emphasized, however, that the decision did not affect the illegal status of child marriages.

“This decision is one that was made for adults, over the age of 18, those who are legally entitled to enter into a marital relationship,” she said. “It is a crime for children under the age of 18 to live together in any kind of marital engagement, both in terms of the civil code and the Turkish Penal Code, and stipulates a heavy sentence.”

Islam said her ministry had suspicions that confusion might arise in public over what the decision means and how it is to be implemented, adding that the parliament would work to lay the legal groundwork when it reopens in three weeks.