A decision by the ministry of home affairs to introduce a marriage application bill that, among others, would require couples to submit a marriage application that will be advertised in the newspapers for objections, has been labelled “nonsense”.
Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah said marriage should not be based on public approval, but on the will of the individuals involved.
“It’s lunacy and I really don’t understand what the ministry is trying to achieve with that goal. Control of private affairs?
“We are really treading into a dangerous territory, with our government trying to control private affairs.
“Remember the initiative to train, on taxpayers’ burden, the spouses of National Council members? Democracy in this country is becoming a controlled endeavour,” he added.
This comes after the deputy minister of home affairs, Daniel Kashikola, in an interview with New Era newspaper, explained that couples in the near future should submit applications for their marriages.
According to Kashikola, the term ‘open for public scrutiny’ implies that if anyone objects to the proposed marriage, the marriage in question will be postponed until the matter is resolved.
The bill is set to be tabled next month.
“There will be hearings, whereby the person objecting to the marriage will have to give reasonable grounds why they don’t want that marriage to take place,” he said.
It was further reported that if a marriage application has no objection, then that couple will be required to get married within 90 days. If they do not, then they will be required to reapply.
He added that the purpose of the bill is to avoid fraudulent marriages and avoid marrying individuals who are already married.
Rally for Democracy and Progress parliamentarian Mike Kavekotora said he does not understand what the bill intends to achieve or what current problems the bill intends to address.
“This is what can be termed an infringement on the rights of individual citizens’ privacy. Secondly, Namibia is facing life-threatening issues such as unemployment, hunger, poverty and gender-based violence,” he said.
Kavekotora said it is a waste of resources on trivial matters that do not add to the betterment of society.
“We have citizens deprived of old-age pensions for not having identification documents, homeless African citizens without a country they can call their own and here we have the Swapo government wasting valuable time and resources.
Who has the right to object to a decision taken by two mature people? In the absence of a clear problem definition, this is absolute nonsense,” he expressed.
Popular Democratic Movement parliamentarian Elma Dienda said in some cases it may be good and in some not.
“The good part is that our women will be protected from evil marriages.
Some spouses have other alternatives for wanting to be married, for wrong reasons, or are already married, staying with someone else, many other reasons,” she said.
Dienda added that: “This is where the good comes in. People who do not have genuine interest in marriage can be exposed in this way. On the other hand, it can also be abused by jealous partners, or friends, family members and the society.”
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