Punjab ordered to issue divorce certificates to non-Muslims.

LAHORE -- The Lahore High Court (LHC) Wednesday directed the Punjab government to frame, within 90 days, rules under which union councils would issue divorce certificates to members of Christian and other non-Muslim communities in Pakistan.

In many parts of the country, the divorce certificates are not issued to non-Muslims by union councils that instead claimed such certificates were 'not issued to the Christian community.' This is an issue for members of the said community because, without a divorce certificate, they cannot request the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to update their marital status while applying for the renewal of their identity cards.

The matter was brought to the attention of the LHC during the case Shumaila Sharif vs the secretary union council etc.

The petitioner in her appeal requested that the court is a writ of Mandamus - an order from a court to an inferior government official ordering the government official to properly - against the relevant union council and direct it to issue her the divorce certificate.

The petition was heard on December 16 last year and the presiding judge was Judge Tariq Saleem Sheikh.

During the proceedings, the counsel of the petitioner, Advocate Umar Saeed, said that the issue was faced by several people in the Christian community and was not a one-off incident.

Citing Section 33 (1)(j) of the Punjab Local Government Act 2022 (PLGA 2022) - which mandates that union councils ensure registration of births, deaths, marriages and divorces for all the communities without discrimination - and Article 36 of the Constitution, which expressly requires the state to protect the minorities' legitimate rights and interests, the counsel argued that by refusing to issue the requisite...