Challenges faced by quazi court and its resolutions in Contemporary Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lanka is a multi-ethnic country. There are various traditional legal systems still practiced in the country. Hence the Muslim personal law is one of them. There are several criticisms against the Muslim personal law. Because of all the criticisms, it is prioritized that Muslim divorce cases are to be handled under the common law than the Quazi court. Quazi courts are criticized for its partial and discriminatory treatment of Muslim women in dealing with marriage issues. This study found that Quazi court has its own judiciary practices which are not conducive to protect women and instead, violating the rights of women in handling the divorce cases. This study identifies the challenges faced by the women dealing the divorce cases in this court. This study proposes recommendations to make obsolete the Quazi court in dealing with divorce cases in order to safeguard the democratic rights of the Muslim women. This study is based on Nintavur regional Quazi court. Primary information were collected through Observation and interviews and secondary information were collected from Books, journals, websites and the records from Quazi courts.