Talking courtship to court

An adult woman, well-educated by Pakistani standards, left her parents declaring that she wished to live with the man she had quietly married. For reasons of security, the woman, 22-year-old Saima Waheed took refuge in a half-way house for women in distress. Her father filed a habeas corpus petition in the Lahore High Court. Pakistani law and practice required the court only to ascertain whether the woman had attained the age when she could have decided on her future by herself and whether she had acted of her free will. The matter appeared to have been settled when Ms Waheed was found to be sui juris (legally competent to manage one´s own affairs) and when she declared in court that she had voluntarily entered into matrimony.

A criminal case was then instituted against her husband on charges of tampering with a marriage record, but this was a different matter that had no bearing on Ms Waheed´s freedom of choice. Yet the issue developed into a long-drawn out legal battle, the one-member High Court bench was enlarged to three judges, while Ms Waheed´s counsel, the widely respected human rights campaigner Asma Jahangir became the target of harassment and calumny. Instead of being treated as a habeas corpus matter, the case revolved around the question of whether a nikah (marriage contract) undertaken without the consent of parents, even if the girl was sui juris, could be considered valid, and whether such a marriage could be invalidated by the court.