ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court will sit this week to hear four different complaints against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) about polygamy rules, traffic fines, and the dissolution of two ministries.
“We will appear in the Federal Court on the 11th of this month,” Aso Hashim, a lawyer on the polygamy complaint, told Rudaw.
His client is seeking the abolition of polygamy restrictions in the Kurdistan Region.
Article 7 of the Personal Status Law in Iraq imposes two conditions on a person wanting to marry a second wife: a minimum age of 18 and obtaining a judge’s approval of the marriage. In the Kurdistan Region, however, for a man to marry a second wife, the first wife has to either approve the marriage in court or be chronically ill. In addition, the man must be able to provide for both wives.
The plaintiff is asking the Federal Court to declare the Kurdistan Region’s amendments unconstitutional as they contradict the established principles of Islamic Sharia.
The plaintiff’s wife had asked for a divorce based on the law after he had married a second wife.
Previous challenges to the Kurdistan Region’s polygamy rules have been dismissed by the court.
Another complaint that will be taken up the same day is against the prime minister and interior minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and seeks to declare the interior minister's authority to increase or decrease fees and traffic fines unconstitutional.
It also demands the abolition of safety inspection fees that Kurdistan Region citizens pay to companies, as well as preventing the issuance of multiple speeding fines to drivers on the same road and the same day.
The other complaints call for the dissolution of two KRG ministries - Martyrs and Anfal Affairs and Endowment and Religious Affairs.
One of the lawsuits asks the Federal Supreme Court to declare the Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs, which was established under Law No. 8 of 2006, unconstitutional and direct the KRG to form a body called the Martyrs Institute, which should fall under the Council of Ministers and be financially and administratively independent.
It also calls for the removal of the words “Anfal victims” from the committee or ministry, as the word appears in the Qur'an and is contrary to the rules of Islam.
Anfal, meaning spoils of war, was the codename the Baathist regime gave to its 1988 genocidal military campaign against the Kurds.
