A HIGH court judge wants lawmakers to set the age of marriage across civil and native courts.

High Court Judge Martin Idang said there is currently no definition of the “right age” for marriage, during a dialogue between the judiciary, agencies, MPs and Sabah representatives in Kota Kinabalu, today.

Under Sabah’s State Native Law, there is no minimum marriage age for boys or girls.

“However, the age to qualify to get married is defined as those who had hit puberty as there is no definition for a ‘right age’ under the law.”

“For instance, there had been a case in Ranau, Sabah where a 14-year-old girl was legally married to a man, with their parents’ consent,” he said.

“I call on the lawmakers to give a definition of what constitutes ‘cukup umur’,” he added.

Under the Law Reforms Act, which attempted to regulate customary marriages, girls aged 16 and above can marry. However, the 16-year-old would require the chief minister’s consent.

“I don’t know why the chief minister is needed. Is he needed to see whether the 16-year-old is healthy enough or capable? I don’t know, capable of what? Capable of having a family?”

Idang also noted that the native court should consider having couples register their marriages, similar to what is required of civil marriages.

At present, the native court only issues a certificate of dowry.

Although, the native law allows men to have polygamous relationships, there must be proper data recording the marriages, he said.

“This will allow interested parties to check whether the man has been married before in other districts and how many wives he has, “ he said.

There was much public uproar in June after a 41-year-old man took an 11-year-old as his third wife. It spurred local and international children’s rights groups to call on the new Pakatan Harapan government to ban marriages for anyone under 18 years of age.

A month later, a 15-year-old girl reportedly married a 44-year-old People’s Volunteer Corp (Rela) member in Kelantan.

United Nations special rapporteur Maud de Boer-Buquicchio recently said the government should do away with all such SOPs, and simply raise and enforce the minimum age for marriage to 18 with no exceptions.

Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail pledged in Parliament that laws governing child marriages will be tightened with amendments to be be tabled by mid-2019.

“The amendments, among others, will include the requirements that social, health and police reports are submitted for application for underage marriages, which comes under the purview of the Home Ministry,” said the women, family and community development minister.

Dr Wan Azizah said the amendments will cover both civil and Islamic marriages and make it a requirement for relevant agencies to submit reports before such marriages are allowed.

She said amendments will be made to the Islamic Family Law (Federal Territories) Act 1984 for underage marriages under Islamic law where the reports must be submitted to a Syariah Court judge.

As for non-Muslim marriages, cabinet papers to amend the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 will be tabled in 2019. – November 16, 2018.