Islam and Human Rights — Page 150
Isl am and Hum an R ights 150 be ex posed to the same risk. These are some of the limitations due to religion and neither the Declaration nor any piece of legislation can override them. If the Muslim woman concerned in the last case, for instance, refused her consent to marriage with a non-Muslim, there would be an end of the matter, for even the Declaration requires her full and free consent (Art. 16-2). If she were to consent but her guardian refused his consent, the marriage could still not take place under Islamic Law. She could not, in such a case, have recourse to the Qazi, for the guardian’s refusal to consent would be in consonance with Islamic Law. If a form of marriage were gone through in such a case, it would be null and void under Islamic Law. In certain jurisdictions such a marriage could be cele brated as a “civil marriage”; but this would, in most cases involve a declaration on the part of the woman that she has no religion, or at least that she is not a Muslim. Islamic Law would then cease to apply to her. The attempt made in paragraph 1 of Article 16 to ex clude the application of “any limitation due to. . . religion” to the right to marry is also contradictory of Article 18, which is designed to safeguard, inter alia , the right of every one “to manifest his religion or belief ” in practice and observance.