Bahrain Mirror: The Bahraini Government referred the unified family law to the parliament under an urgent status. The law articles are expected to be discussed next week. According to the Royal-Court affiliated al-Watan newspaper, among the most important laws of the draft law is that this law is not amended before the approval of a committee of Islamic Sharia experts and judges, in more the Sunni and Shiite jurisprudence.

The condition is that half of the committee members are judges from the Islamic courts, and are appointed by a Royal decree.

Among the provisions included in the law is "adopting the most common grounds and rulings of the Maliki sect, for those who follow the Sunni jurisprudence, unless the law stipulated otherwise." The law also stipulates that "a girl is not allowed marriage before 16 years old, unless allowed by a religious court, after checking if the marriage is appropriate." A new obligation imposes mentioning the dowry in the marriage contract, by virtue of this law, without any need for the witness to the marriage contract to be a trustee.

Arabic Version