Senate stands firm on Personal Status Law, setting up joint session

AMMAN — The Senate on Thursday endorsed the real estate ownership draft law referred from the Lower House, but pushed back on the Lower House’s changes to the 2010 Personal Status Law, which will require a joint session to end gridlock. 

According to Article 92 of the Constitution, “Should either House twice reject any draft law and the other accept it, whether or not amended, both the Senate and the Chamber shall hold a joint meeting under the chairmanship of the speaker of the Senate to discuss the matters in dispute.”

The Lower House voted to maintain the legal age of marriage exceptions for boys and girls at 15 years old late last year.

But on Wednesday, the Senate’s Legal Committee upheld its previous decision to increase the age of marriage for women in exceptional cases to 16 years old.

Also, senators insisted on “including the children of a woman who dies before her father or at the same time, to one-third of his inheritance as stipulated in conditions and assessments of the law”, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Senator Nael Kabariti disagreed with the Upper House’s decision about cases of exceptional marriage, arguing that disallowing such cases, which constitute less than 2 per cent of marriages according to official figures, would lead to an increase in undocumented marriages, and in turn, social and security threats.

Kabariti said that the public interest requires that judges maintain the authority to decide on important and exceptional cases of marriage.

The real estate ownership draft law combines the regulations of 13 laws and organises them into a single 224-article piece of legislation. Once it goes into effect, the new legislation will cancel out the previous 13 laws.