A Married Woman's Right to Own Property

An Important Judgement of the Supreme Court

Abstract

Islamic law has prescribed the right of dower for women, but unfortunately many people in Pakistan do not give this due right to their wives and create various devices to avoid the payment of dower. Similarly, many women, particularly married women, are deprived of exercising their right to own and dispose of property. Even some judgments of the superior judiciary, under the influence of the principles of English law, treated married women as subservient to their husbands in matter pertaining to ownership of property. In this backdrop, the recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Pakistan in Fawad Ishaq v Mehreen Mansoor, PLD 2020 SC 269, is a welcome change. The judgment which has been written by Honorable Justice Qazi Faez Isa on which Honorable Justice Sardar Tariq Masood concurred, relies on various Qur’anic verses and Prophetic traditions in highlighting the errors in the way some judges treated this issue and, thus, re-establishing for married women the right to own property with all its necessary corollaries. The judgment enunciate the legal principle that “Shariah, including the rights it grants women, was made unassailable by virtue of Article 227 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan”. The present article analyzes some significant aspects of this judgment.