Personal status in German law Did it contribute to the dismantling of immigrant Muslim families?

Haitham Al-Maleh: The German judiciary does not recognize Sharia courts, and therefore we will not see a Sharia judiciary specific to Muslims, but rather they are working to integrate refugees, and integration in its reality means abandoning the Sharia foundations on which the Muslim family was built.

The forced asylum situation imposed on the Arab Muslim refugee to deal with German laws at all levels, and this is positive in that these German laws do not differentiate between a citizen and a resident.

However, there are problems facing refugees, including family laws that differ from the personal statuses in force in Arab countries and derived from Islamic law, as well as the observance by Arab countries of the personal status of non-Muslims.

Variation in family and personal status laws

The system of laws differs from one country to another, and this reflects the values ​​specific to the society and the state that are framed by man-made laws, religion or sect in this or that country. Therefore, the family law of Arab countries knows a large number of distinctive characteristics of the judicial culture deeply rooted in it.

But there are great differences between the regulations and regulations in German family law and their counterparts in the Arab countries, such as the reasons for divorce that have an Islamic legal nature, the legal divorce, the marriage contract and its dissolution before the Sharia courts, in addition to the Islamic Sharia system regarding the dowry, and so on.

Married people residing in Germany as Germans, Arabs or Arabs only, who contracted their marriage according to the procedures of marriage laws specific to Arab countries, and want divorce, are faced with a puzzling question: Under what law are these procedures subject?! And with it the issues arising from it, and related to it, such as: alimony, the law of belongings, and the purposes of marriage, and when there are children: the law of the right to care and education, and the law of the right to communication?! As well as the divorce procedure itself.

What family law is a resident of Germany subject to?

The refugee problems do not end with language, integration, family reunification, and entry to the labor market. Rather, there are other problems that the Muslim refugee has found himself facing, foremost of which is the family law.

Arab countries, for example, give non-Muslim citizens the right to arbitrate in personal status cases such as marriage, divorce and inheritance of what is stated in their religions or sects, while refugees, residents, or those with German citizenship find that they are subject to German family laws that are characterized as civil and man-made laws.

Is the Muslim family threatened with disintegration in Germany?

The laws in force in Germany to which everyone is subject, including family law, violate Islamic law in many principles, including - for example - that it adopts the principle of equality in inheritance, as well as does not recognize the wife's rebellion, but rather gives women advantages that tempted many immigrant women to rebel Their husbands are under the protection of women, which threatens the disintegration of the immigrant Muslim family, according to what critics say.

Lawyer Abdul Razzaq Al-Zarzour said - in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net - that "most of the problems in Islamic families in Germany are due to women's rebellion against laws derived from Islamic law, because they feel false protection, which threatens the disintegration of these families."

He added: "The worst thing that the refugee in general and the Muslim refugee face in Germany is the legal problems related to family rulings and personal status issues, as German courts insist on considering secular German law to be applicable in cases of marriage, divorce, filiation, inheritance, custody and guardianship."

Painful stories

Muhammad Al-Turki tells his story to Al-Jazeera Net, and he has lived in Germany for 36 years and holds her nationality. He married a Syrian woman in 2006, and had 5 children from her, 4 daughters and a boy, but a dispute occurred between him and his wife in 2017, and her resort to the court expanded, so she was divorced Without his desire, and without uttering the word divorce, he said.

Al-Turki added: "After the divorce, I went to live with her children in another city, and I am not allowed to see my children. I tried by all means to reconcile or restore custody of my children. The last time I was allowed to see them was two years ago, and I was not allowed to visit them after that."

There are many stories here in Germany, including what Engineer Jalal told Al Jazeera Net, "My wife and children came to Germany at the end of 2015 in a wave of asylum, and I stayed in Turkey waiting for family reunification for more than a year and a half, and she sent me every month a sum of money."

He added, "I was able to reach Germany with her financial assistance after the family reunion was obstructed, and I was surprised that my wife, who was committed to Islamic clothing, had removed the veil. When I asked her to return to what she was, she refused, then she resorted to the court, and she was divorced, and after For a while, I married another man, and my children stayed with her.

Integration means the absence of Sharia courts!

There is a general problem with the family in Europe before we talk about the immigrant Muslim family, for marriage has become for cohabitation and not for building a family. The wave of refugees was essentially to stop the population decline in Germany due to the disintegration of families.

This is how lawyer Haitham Al-Maleh answered Al-Jazeera.net's question about the problems of the Muslim family in Germany in its submission to German family laws, stressing that "the German judiciary does not recognize Sharia courts, and therefore we will not see a Sharia judiciary specific to Muslims, but rather they are working to integrate refugees, and integration in its reality means Abandoning the legal foundations on which the Islamic family was built.

In addition, a number of refugees - unfortunately - found what they wanted in German family laws. "We saw many cases of divorce and women bullying their husbands, or children's disobedience to their parents, and all of this is explained under the heading of freedom, regardless of the impact on the Muslim family," he says. salty;

Inheritance law and its problems?

German inheritance law is also fundamentally different from Islamic inheritance, as it stipulates that the estate of the deceased passes directly to the heirs. But since August 17, 2015, European Convention No. 650/2012 has entered into force, according to which it is determined which of the international inheritance laws should be applied to distribute an “inheritance” upon the death of the testator.

For example, if the inheritor is Germany, German law is applied (even if he resides in any Arab country), which has been amended under the European Convention on the Law of Inheritance (according to Article 21), as all legal inheritance issues are governed by the law of the country in which he resides. In which the gene was the hour of his death.

Ordinary residence is the place where a person resides in certain circumstances that prove that residence at that location is a permanent, non-temporary residence. Under the term "usual residence", the term of residence must be continuous and uninterrupted for more than 6 months, while temporary travel abroad for a short period does not affect the concept of an individual's usual residence.