Badilag encourages gender-based legal awareness

Serang | badilag.net/english (04/8)|

Directorate General of Religious Courts Body (Badilag) has great concern for empowering gender equity as could be seen from Focus Group Discussion (FGD) held Friday (31/7) at auditorium of PTA (High Religious Court) Banten.

As www.pta-banten.net reported, the FGD, which was a cooperative program of the Dir. Gen. of Badilag, the Dept. of Religious Affairs, The Asia Foundation and the Woman Study Center of UIN (State Islamic University) Sunan Kalijaga Yogyakarta, was aimed at monitoring and controlling the effectiveness of the recent workshop on gender-based legal awareness.

“It is a particularly special FGD because attended by participants from all related elements. The Asia Foundation will make PTA Banten a pilot project on developing this workshop,” said Ema Marhumah, the Director of Woman Study Center UIN Sunan Kalijaga.

Budi Munawar Rahman, Work Program Coordinator in The Asia Foundation, explained urgency of the FGD. He was convinced that PTA Banten would make a good pilot project in developing legal understanding of women.

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“We will surely find judges’ personal judgments on this matter, which is good for justice seekers,” he said.

Chief of PTA Banten, Drs. H. Soufyan M. Saleh, SH, also former Chief of MSy (Sharia Court) Aceh Province, fully supported this program. He said that Banten and Aceh did not basically differ. What made the two different was that Banten society was not really written-law-abiding. This kind of discussion, he said, was hoped to improve public’s law understanding so as to significantly increase the legal cases filed to Religious Courts.

“The number of legal cases filed to Religious Courts in Banten should be ranging from 6000 to 8000 cases because Banten’s residents are two fold compared to Aceh’s,” Soufyan said.

“Just yesterday did we find 5 cases of counterfeiting divorce certificates with Rp. 5 millions each. If the people know that bringing a case to Religious Courts costs much cheaper than the false divorce certificates, they will surely come to Courts. This is the real condition of Banten society and it is our duty to give them an integrated comprehension of (written) law,” said the Chief of PTA. (dee/cho)