ISLAMABAD — The Federal Constitutional Court on Friday (July 24) agreed to reconsider its own judgment upholding the marriage of a 13-year-old Christian girl to a Muslim man more than double her age, a ruling that had alarmed Christians and Hindus, whose daughters are most often taken in such cases. The judgment of February 3 settled three propositions at once. The court declined to inquire into whether a minor's conversion was genuine, holding it immaterial whether it reflected a spiritual transformation or was a device to contract the marriage. A child marriage remains valid, under the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 as applicable in Punjab, even though solemnising it is an offence. And the man she married becomes, by virtue of that marriage, her lawful guardian — her wali.

A two-member bench of Justice Syed Hasan Azhar Rizvi and Justice Aamer Farooq admitted the review petition for hearing and issued notices to the girl's husband, Shehryar Ahmad, the Attorney General for Pakistan and the Advocate General of Punjab. Human rights organisations have reported Ahmad's age at the time of the marriage as 30; the court record does not state it. The matter will be taken up after the court's summer recess, which ends in the first week of September. Maria remains in Ahmad's custody.

Review petitions are seldom entertained in Pakistan. The court must be satisfied that an error is apparent on the face of the record, not merely that a different conclusion was available. Justice Farooq asked counsel to identify the touchstone on which review lay. Muhammad Saqib Jillani, appearing for Maria's father Shahbaz Masih, submitted that the February judgment had decided a question no party had raised, while the two questions actually before the court went undecided: whether a girl below the age of 16 can lawfully contract a marriage, and what legal value attaches to a statement recorded under section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code by a minor.

Justice Rizvi, who conducted most of the questioning, asked what the legal status of a marriage involving a child should be. Jillani replied that any such marriage should be annulled, and said this was the central basis of the review. The bench at the beginning of the hearing declined, at this stage, to implead two non-government organisations – True Christian Spirit and Legal Aid Society – as parties in Shahbaz Masih's petition. Justice Rizvi said the court was the guardian of all communities........

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