Pontianak Religious Court Decision No. 265 of 2015: Irrevocable Divorce Granted

The parties were married on 10 February 2008. They lived together and had two children (aged 6 and 2). Initially, the marriage had been harmonious. By August 2014, however, the parties had begun to quarrel regularly. The plaintiff submitted that:

  1. the defendant would often not come home from work, providing no reason or explanation;
  2. the defendant often pawned the parties’ household items, including her parents' car, providing no reason or explanation;
  3. the defendant, since October 2014, had ceased to financially support the plaintiff;
  4. the defendant had sold the title to the plaintiff’s parents' property solely for his own benefit; and
  5. while the plaintiff had often financially supported the defendant in the hope he would change, he had not.

In January 2015, the plaintiff left the defendant. The plaintiff claimed that the aforementioned circumstances had caused the marriage to deteriorate irreparably, and requested that the Court grant her an irrevocable divorce (talak satu ba’in shughra). The plaintiff also requested that the court grant her custody of the parties' child, and order the defendant to pay to her IDR 1,000,000 per month in child support.

While the plaintiff cooperated with the court, the defendant failed to attend the proceeding, despite having been summonsed. The court found that the marriage was irreparable and could no longer fulfil the purposes of art 1 of Law No. 1 of 1974, and art 3 of the Compilation of Islamic Laws, and that the plaintiff’s claim satisfied the requirements of art 39(2) of Law No. 1 of 1974, in conjunction with art 19(f) of Government Regulation No. 9 of 1975, and art 116(f) of the Compilation of Islamic Laws, in that the parties' differences were indeed irreconcilable. The court, however, did not consider the plaintiff’s claims for custody or child support because she subsequently withdrew that part of her claim. The court ordered the plaintiff to pay all court costs (IDR 316,000).

FirstPreviousPage 1 of of 15NextLast