{"id":80498,"date":"2018-08-27T16:53:23","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T23:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=80498"},"modified":"2018-08-27T16:53:23","modified_gmt":"2018-08-27T23:53:23","slug":"are-we-barking-up-the-wrong-tree-part-2-female-qazis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2018\/08\/27\/are-we-barking-up-the-wrong-tree-part-2-female-qazis\/","title":{"rendered":"Are we barking up the wrong tree \u2013 Part 2 – Female Qazis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Letter to the editor:\u00a0 by Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai,\u00a0Dehiwela<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Another subject hotly debated in the two submissions of MMDA is the case of appointing female qazis. Back again we are missing the basic reason for the feeling that male qazis are inadequate.<\/p>\n

The function of a \u00a0qazi \u00a0is a \u00a0sacred duty prescribed by Islam. But \u00a0in Srilanka, it \u00a0is the most despicable, neglected and mismanaged system to say the least. There are no control over the function of \u00a0qazis either in election, function, office space, shariah knowledge or abuse of their posts whatsoever. No specific qualifications are specified \u00a0for\u00a0 their appointments and their utter lack \u00a0or contempt of shariah knowledge, blatant abuse of power and mishandling of cases \u00a0are legend. Theoretically they can be reported but the parties concerned are always wary of complaining, lest there will be bias in the judgement given to them. \u00a0Until all these anomalies are rectified appointing males or females is not going to make any difference in the outcome of the divorce cases. The following measures are necessary to bring about any positive changes:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Selecting them on the basis of qualification in shariah and \u00a0known factors regarding their honesty and thaqwa, and their standing in the society<\/li>\n
  2. A proper office to be allocated to\u00a0 them which \u00a0should not be \u00a0their homes, for then\u00a0 there is no privacy; a place for the grieved parties to be inquired privately \u00a0in seclusion from prying eyes \u00a0and an atmosphere conducive for reconciliation to the maximum<\/li>\n
  3. Proper salary to be paid for them so that they will do the job sincerely and will not resort to be biased towards the ones who give bribes; extracting a reasonable amount of payment from the applicant for divorce may \u00a0achieve double profits \u2013 one to increase the payment of the qazi \u00a0and the other to act as a deterrent from requesting divorce for flimsy reasons<\/li>\n
  4. Regular in \u2013service \u2013 training given to them, \u00a0at least once a year by a knowledgeable body<\/li>\n
  5. Monthly reporting of the cases handled by them to a higher authority which \u00a0is well known and easily accessible \u00a0to \u00a0the public.<\/li>\n
  6. Very stern action against those who proved to have acted against shariah rules<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The qazis are in a way the guardians of justice and fair play in the society, \u00a0handling one of the most important aspect, namely the family system. \u00a0Unless and until the system is rectified we will be just jumping form the frying pans into the fire\u00a0 by appointing the women to be qazis.<\/p>\n

    In this case the headache certainly exists and the causes are well known. Without treating the causes, just giving Panadol instead of Aspirin is not going to solve the problem.<\/p>\n

    Sent by:<\/p>\n

    Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai,<\/p>\n

    Dehiwela<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Letter to the editor:\u00a0 by Dr. Mareena Thaha Reffai,\u00a0Dehiwela Another subject hotly debated in the two submissions of MMDA is the case of appointing female qazis. Back again we are missing the basic reason for the feeling that male qazis are inadequate. The function of a \u00a0qazi \u00a0is a \u00a0sacred duty prescribed by Islam. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}