Padang Religious Court Decision No. 47 of 2015: Irrevocable Divorce Granted

The parties were married on 3 March 2012 and had their first and only child on 1 June 2014. The plaintiff submitted, however, that the parties had quarrelled regularly since December 2012 because the defendant had had an extra-marital affair. The plaintiff also submitted that the defendant would take medicinal drugs that would often make him angry. On one occasion, for instance, in mid-February 2013, the plaintiff asked the defendant not to bring his friends home with him. In response, the defendant grabbed the plaintiff by the hair and put his hands around her neck.

Unbeknownst to the plaintiff at the time, the defendant had incurred a IDR 2 million debt with the owner of a travel service after failing to pay the owner at the time the service was rendered. Problems escalated when, on 25 June 2014, the plaintiff's parents inquired with the defendant as to the debt, to which the defendant still would not admit. When the plaintiff's parents asked the parties to resolve the matter on their own time, the defendant had concluded that the plaintiff's parents were telling him to leave their home. The defendant then left the parties' home, and the parties had remained separated for approximately seven months.

At the end of September 2014 the defendant spent the night with another woman, which the plaintiff learned about from the woman in question. Then, on 20 December 2014, the defendant picked up the plaintiff, unbeknownst to her parents, and brought her to his parents' home in Pesisir Selatan, West Sumatra. When the plaintiff's parents came to pick her up, the defendant threatened them with a knife. Believing her marriage to the defendant was no longer tenable, the plaintiff sought a divorce.

The court, pursuant to art 19(f) of Government Regulation No. 9 of 1975, and art 116(f) of the Compilation of Islamic Laws, acceded to the plaintiff's request, granting her an irrevocable divorce (talak satu ba'in sughra) as envisaged by art 119(2)c of the Compilation of Islamic Laws on the grounds of ongoing conflict.

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