Hansard

I direct the committee's attention back to its stage 1 report, which states:"the 2004 consultation paper and, indeed, the Bill is silent on this issue."We concluded:"there are strong arguments that, as a matter of principle, the law should not conflate civil and religious divorces."I would like us to uphold that principle. I have difficulties with the amendment in principle, but I also think that we have not considered it in enough detail. Even without amendment 33A, there are difficulties. Amendment 33 is aimed at Jewish marriage, but it will also apply to other religions.The wording at the end of amendment 33 leaves it open for us to go back and amend the eventual act by a statutory instrument, without the need for primary legislation. From an equal opportunities point of view, amendment 33 is an open one because it would allow other faiths to look at changing our divorce law. I believe that our divorce law should be a matter for civil procedures.I do not want to go through the many religions in Scotland—there are more and more of them—but one of the bigger minority religions is Roman Catholicism. That religion is similar to the Jewish religion in having a religious impediment to remarrying; Roman Catholics do not believe in divorce, unless there is an annulment. If there is a divorce but no annulment, the Roman Catholic Church will view any subsequent marriage as adulterous. If we consider Hinduism in the same light, does that mean that our divorce law will have to accommodate different religious beliefs about marriage and divorce? Will we have to take into consideration, for example, the fact that Hindu divorce recognises different grounds for separation, such as religious conversion? The committee has not considered such questions in detail. It is a mistake for us to accept something that would fundamentally change what we do, without considering it deeply. I am seriously concerned about this issue.Sharia law governs divorce in the Muslim religion, which does not regard the partners in a marriage as being equal in any way. There are different rules for men and for women. I am extremely concerned that we might open up our family law to change that would disadvantage the very women whom we are supposedly trying to look after. There is also a restriction on a Muslim woman remarrying within three months of a divorce in case the man changes his mind. We have not considered or taken evidence on all sorts of details.At the time, the committee decided that it was a mistake to conflate the two laws and that it would be much better to leave them apart. I was told that the changes affect only a handful of couples in the UK as a whole. As was said, the English changes are recent. The committee talks about evidence a lot and about why we should not move forward without it. However, we do not have the evidence from the English changes to consider properly before making what will be a fundamental change to our laws. There is another way. The Jewish community has powerful tools, which I was told about, to persuade reluctant spouses to grant consent to a religious divorce. Amendment 33 seeks to change timings, but the Jewish community could sort out the problem by putting pressure on a couple to get the Jewish divorce first before going to a civil court, if that would help.I repeat that I do not think that the committee has examined this issue properly; I also think that the Executive should go back and examine it further. Amendment 33 seems to seek to give Jewish religious divorce preference over other kinds of religious divorces. Even without amendment 33A, the door is left open to other faiths. There are questions that we have not considered. For example, would we be introducing two separate procedures? Would legal aid be available for both and would it be needed for both? What would be the chances of being awarded legal aid?Training would be required for all sheriffs so that they understood the finer points of religious marriages. That is another issue that we have not asked about. We have been very careful about the changes that we are proposing. We want to ensure that the bill is practicable and workable and that sheriffs will think that it is practicable, but we have not looked at the matter from the sheriffs' point of view.I reiterate the fact that other religious impediments would also have to be taken into account. I am thinking of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church does not accept divorce and that Islam gives preference to the male partner in a marriage. Also, how well is the change working in England? As I said, there was not much time to gather evidence on the subject and, certainly, we did not seek evidence on it.I will not support amendment 33. We should look at the matter in an awful lot more detail than we are able to manage today. I ask Kenneth Macintosh to seek leave to withdraw amendment 33. If he does not agree to do so, I ask my fellow committee members to vote against it.