German judge invokes Qur’an to deny abused wife a divorce
A German judge who refused a Moroccan woman a fast-track divorce on the grounds that domestic violence was acceptable according to the Qur’an has been removed from the case following a nationwide outcry.
The judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said the German woman of Moroccan descent would not be granted a divorce because she and her husband came from a “Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife,” according to a statement she wrote that was issued by a Frankfurt court. “That’s what the claimant had to reckon with when she married the defendant.”The 26-year-old mother of two had been repeatedly beaten and threatened with death by her husband.
When the woman protested against the judge’s decision, Ms Datz-Winter invoked the Qur’an to support her argument. In the court she read from verse 34 of Sura four of the Qur’an, An-Nisa (Women), in which men are told to hit their wives as a final stage in dealing with disobedience. The verse reads: “… as to those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping places and beat them”.
That judge should lose her job. And incidentally, there is (as always) a wide range of interpretations and thinking about this part of the Quran.
Update: NYT story on alternate interpretation, by which a rebellious woman should be spurned rather than beaten as usually interpreted.
This has, as you may guess, provoked quiet a strong reaction in Germany. There has been no debate. The decision of the judge was wrong – fullstop. She might very well loose her job, as you request. There is an internal audit about that right now.
Supposedly the judge is a bit mentally unstable since she was shot at during another trial one year ago. Arguably she has never been the same since. Therefore she might be early retired instead of being kicked out. We’ll see.
Moritz
The judge just shown a lot of respect for muslim culture, so why do you panic. This is what all of you were asking for. This case shows how nonsense is to argue by refering to culture and traditions. If they can caim a right for halal food at schools, and many other concessions by refering to their culture, than why not in this case also?
http://eteraz.org/story/2007/3/23/94128/8892“ rel=”nofollow”>I blogged about this here. Glad to see you blogging about it, too.
It is one thing to respect Muslim and Moroccan culture, it is another thing to twist the sensitivity angle as an excuse for lazy ajudication. Ironically, under the Moudouana, this women could have obtained her divorce with less difficulty in Morocco.
The US government condones torture so if I torture my neighbor in France, should I get off in the name of cultural sensitivity because my government has shown a decided fondness for this kind of thing?
[…] Richard Dawkins, Expatica, The Kenig Konnection, The Arabist […]
Sad and pitiful. Perhaps the only thing worse than the anti-Islamic bigotry is this sort of brain dead enabling of genuine obscurantism (which then enables bigotry more),
she had it coming to her
the judge is my kind of man’
There’s more to this: The woman who wanted the fast-track divorce – a special mechanism. A “normal” divorce is zero problem after the usual period of 12 months split-up. That 12 month period is over in May, but for one reason or another the wanted a last-minute acceleration.
So she went to the court again. For the fast-track divorce you need claim to a special hardship.
Now comes the fun point: Her special reason was, she explanied, that she was such a great Muslim, and her husband wasn’t, because he had beaten her. She really pestered the court with long islamic tracts, invoking Allah multiple times.
The court turned her down, because she had a restraining order against he husband already, and as a half-serious annoyed extra, sneeked in the thing about “It’s Islam, what did you expect?”
Still an odd story, though.
Uli, that is the lamest attempt at rationalisation and blaming the victim I’ve ever seen. The woman’s lawyer said that she feared for her life.