KAMPALA.
Thousands of marriages could be rendered unlawful by the government’s decision to actively enforce sections of the law governing marriage in Uganda that require all couples who tie the matrimonial knot to have their union officially registered.
The legal requirement is going to be enforced for all customary, Muslim and civil marriages, including marriage in church, entered into over the last five years. Whoever does not comply will leave the government no option but to declare their matrimonial vows null and void, Registrar General Bemanya Twebaze said yesterday.
Mr Twebaze said the last five years are considered as being the most recent timeframe within which the law can be applied. For all new weddings, it’s incumbent on those who conduct them—the sheikhs, imams, priests and pastors among others -- to register them upon payment of Shs35,000, which must be remitted to the Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB).
Last week, the director for registration at the URSB, Ms Eva Mugerwa, had indicated that couples who got married much earlier, but whose marriages were not officially recorded, should still get themselves registered.
No deadline has been set for registration but Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister Kahinda Otafiire and his team of technocrats have raised the red flag, saying the mandate to register marriages—specifically the previous ones, squarely lies on the shoulders of the spouses. “According to the law you are not married unless you registered the marriage,” said Maj. Gen. Otafiire yesterday in an interview on the sidelines of a public meeting over the matter.
The minister’s statement was in response to a question as to whether the law does not usurp the role bestowed on Christian clergy and Muslim sheikhs, among other religious leaders, to bless the union of marriage.
Gen. Otafiire’s comments were made at a meeting with leaders of the Muslim community in Kampala as part of ongoing sensitisation on the regularisation of marriages. He said although he is aware of the contentious issues involved, all he is concerned with at the moment is enforcement of the legislation as a middle ground around the matter is being sought.
Muslims who attended the meeting organised by the URSB, the agency mandated to oversee the registration process and enforce compliance, had mixed reactions on the matter. “I am in support of that,” said Sheikh Muhammad Ali Wasswa, the Mullah at Makerere University Business School. Sheikh Wasswa was, however, uncomfortable with the fee to be imposed on couples and how it was calculated considering that previously it was Shs200.
Imam Abdul Wahid of Gadaffi National Mosque said: “We will look at this proposal further. Because if one says that according to the law that a marriage that has been conducted according to the Holy Quran and the sayings of the Prophet is null and void, then there are bound to be problems.”
Last week Christian leaders, who attended a similar workshop organised by the bureau to brief them on the laws and requirements governing the acquisition of licences to conduct marriages, were also not happy with the move. “This requirement is part of an old colonial law which is about regulating something that is an inherent right,” Apostle Gyagenda Semakula of Victory Christian Centre said.
Apostle Semakula also reasoned that the development could be a State ploy to get money from the churches, something he says is untimely. He, however, agreed with the fact that the churches can help the State in gathering statistical data on deaths and marriages.
iladu@ug.nationmedia.com