TURKEY’S Constitutional Court announced May 29 that civil marriage is no longer a legal requirement for religiously married citizens, a decision that will have serious social implications.
Many critics, especially women, fret that the ruling will pave the way for more violations of women’s and children’s rights.
The court based its decision on a case from 2014, when a criminal court in the Turkish province of Erzurum appealed a case to the Constitutional Court involving a religiously married couple without a civil marriage and the imam who carried out the ceremony.
Prior to this latest decision, Paragraph 5 of Article 230 of the Turkish Criminal Code dictated a sentence of two to six months in prison for individuals who lived together after a religious wedding without a civil marriage.
In the same article, Paragraph 6 also gave two to six months’ imprisonment to an individual (typically an imam) who carried out a religious wedding ceremony without verifying a civil marriage with official documents.
But while last week’s decision annuls the above paragraphs by a majority 12-4 vote, the Constitutional Court had unanimously ruled the opposite in a 1999 case appealed by the Bursa Criminal Court.
At the time, the court confirmed that according to the Turkish Criminal Code, religiously married couples that lived together were committing a crime, but individuals who lived together without any religious ceremony were not.
The court then explained its decision on the basis of upholding the Turkish Civil Code and on the state’s responsibility to protect women and children, as described in Article 41 of the Turkish Constitution.
Now the 1999 decision has been reversed.
From a liberal point of view, the court’s ruling may be interpreted as a positive one in terms of enhancing people’s freedom to choose the way they want to live. It recalls another decision from January 2014, when a court set a truly progressive precedent: Any married woman may continue to use her maiden surnameby appealing to a court.
However, worries about the consequences of the court’s latest decision spurred a chain of strong reactions from human rights activists from academia, nongovernmental organizations and female political leaders from both the ruling party and the opposition.
Notably, Deputy Parliament Speaker Aysenur Bahcekapili of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) stated her concerns for increased risks of polygamy and inheritance or alimony problems for children.
Main opposition Republican People’s Party deputy Candan Yuceer reminded listeners that in Turkey, at least one in three women were married while underage and pointed out that the court’s decision legalized child marriage in a way, leaving women and children with no rights in the event of divorce or a spouse’s death.
The Federation of Turkish Women’s Associations announced that it would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, the rulings of which are binding for Turkey.
The federation pointed out an ECHR ruling on a case from 2010, when a woman named Serife Yigit received no inheritance rights to her deceased husband’s pension and insurance because they had only been religiously married.
The number of similar cases will only increase, the federation warned.