Imagine leaving your once significant other only to be ordered by a court to return to marriage and to restore conjugal relations with said person. In other words, an abusive husband can have a court order his wife, who has fled abuse, to restore relations in the bedroom and to continue to carry out “wifely” duties. Though no longer enforced, such a recourse is still provided for in Guyanese law and the government is moving to have it rightfully axed.
Speaking recently on the imminent revamp of the over a century-old Matrimonial Causes Act, was Guyana’s Legal Affairs Minister and Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, during a live airing of his _“Issues in the News”_ programme on Tuesday night. The minister noted that a bill, which was read for the first time in the House last Friday, seeks to overhaul the act and to bring it into modernity.
“It definitely needed updating, and this bill updates it. We use the opportunity to update the Matrimonial Causes Act because there were many things in there that were really overtaken by time and by developments in the law.
“So, for example, in that Act, there is something called Restoration of Conjugal Rights. What that means is if there is a breakdown in conjugal rights; meaning parties living together and they have a dispute and they become estranged, one of those parties could have approached the court and get a court order directing a restoration of those relations,” the minister said.
He added that the court order could be granted despite that couple’s relationship being irreparably fractured or irreconcilable.
“The husband could get an order to make the wife come back in the matrimonial home. Perhaps that was what was legally and socially accepted 100 years ago, but now we have reached a position in society where the law itself permits a husband to be charged with raping his wife,” the Minister said, illustrating the irrelevance of the clause in a progressing society.
He emphasised that the court restoring conjugal relations is tantamount to permitting rape.
“The court is also authorizing that man to have sexual relationship with that woman even though the woman may not be consenting. Today, that is rape but that’s still in our law so that will be removed once this bill is passed,” Nandlall stressed.
EQUALITY
Nandlall noted that the amendments will also seek to bring about gender equality in society, adding that the act will also seek to level the field in the area of husbands being financial relief from wives.
Referencing the ruling by the Chief Justice Roxanne George that was handed down a few months ago, which granted a husband maintenance from his wife, Nandlall said that the time was nigh to include equality in the act.
“A husband has no right to apply for maintenance from his wife and the Chief Justice rightfully struck that provision down as being contrary to and inconsistent with the provisions of our Constitution which guarantee equal treatment and freedom from discrimination irrespective of gender, race, religion, etcetera.
“Because those provision discriminated against men, and it created an unequal treatment between men and women on the basis of their gender, that will be removed and the provisions will be gender neutral. So, a husband can claim maintenance from his wife and a wife can claim maintenance from her husband,” the AG noted.
