By Halima Abdallah
March 11, 2004 -Monitor
|
COURT � Women can now divorce their husbands if they catch them cheating, the Constitutional Court ruled yesterday. The ruling follows a petition filed by a team of female lawyers and three men in March 2003 challenging sections of the Divorce Act for discriminating against both men and women. The petitioners argued that the Act allows men to divorce their wives on the grounds of adultery � but a woman had to prove adultery as well as other crimes such as bigamy, incest, desertion, sodomy or violent assault. They said this was inconsistent with the 1995 Constitution, which specifies that men and women are equal. It was a view upheld unanimously by five Constitutional Court judges yesterday. The ruling also means that following divorce, men can receive alimony from their ex-wives. Women can now also collect costs (of divorce petitions) from the women who committed adultery with their husbands, which wasn�t possible before the ruling. The current law holds the concept that a man is superior to a woman. No article of the Constitution can be evoked to justify the challenged sections.� Other judges on the bench included Galdino M.Okello, S.G Engwau, A Mpagi Bahigeine and C.N.B. Kitumba. They ruled that all grounds of divorce must apply to all parties in marriage. |
� 2004 The Monitor Publications
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Search - Find what you�re looking for faster.
