Brief Overview on the Inter-Religion Marriage: Loopholes and Case

3. Request a court decision

Request a court decision, last conducted in 1986, where Andi Vonny Gani as the applicant. There is a jurisprudence of Supreme Court decision which is Supreme Court Decision No. 1400K/Pdt/1986.[2] This decision stated that, Civil Registry Office (KCS) at that time allowed to conducting an inter-religion marriage. This case started when Andi Vonny Gani (women/Christian) as the applicant, want to married with Andrianus Petrus Hendrik Nelwan (men/Christian). In their consideration, Supreme Court stated that by the filling of petition for conduct the marriage to the chief of Civil Registry Office (KCS), should be interpreted that the applicant intends to conduct a marriage is not as a Islamic marriage. So, in that condition, Civil Registry Office, as the only institution that has the authority to conduct a marriage for non-islamic marriage, should approve the applicant. So, there is a possibility.

II. Registration

Interfaith Marriage Registration (Chatolic Institution-St. Antonius Church Case)

           

Sak Liung (a Buddhist) and Friska Widhiyati (a Catholic) got married in 2013 in St. Antonius Church, Yogyakarta. They wedded in a Catholic ceremony, but it did not involve converting Sak Liung into Catholicism. He also did not need to change his religion on his identity card. They told me that the church gave a dispensation for           Catholics who want to marry non-Catholics.

In order to get a legal recognition from the state, the church testified to give evidence that the marriage was already officiated in a Catholic ceremony to the Population and Civil Registration Agency in Yogyakarta, so the state can issue the marriage certificate.

            Officials of the Population and Civil Registry Office said that the office only accepts and records the testimony from religious institutions, in Sak Liung and Friska’s case, the church. According to Martinus Agus Hutoro, the chief of Marriage and Divorce Services section and Joko Setiadi, the chief of Development and Data System Maintenance section (both from the Civil Registry Office), the office has no problem if the groom and the bride have different religious backgrounds as written in their identity cards as long as there is a testimony from a religious institution that it has officiated their wedding ceremony, because the purpose of the civil registry office is just register marriage that has been legitimate or legal by the religious authority.     Based on the couple’s story, the religious institution plays the important role in making an inter-religion marriage possible.[3]

            According to this evidence, it is clear that the state, in this case the Population and Civil Registration Agency only accepts and records testimonies from religious institutions. In short, the state does not intervene in the religious affairs in the context of marriage. The decision whether a marriage is valid or not, including an inter-religion marriage, is totally on religious institutions. That is in the same line with what is written in the Regulation No. 1/1974 about Marriage.