By: Daily Monitor
Officials from the Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB), the government agency responsible for registering all marriages in the country, have decried the slow progress in debating and passing the Marriage and Divorce Bill, 2017, saying it is an impediment in their attempts to introduce changes to the 1904 Marriage Act, which they say is now obsolete.
Among the proposed issues to be amended are the need to retrospectively legalise marriages that took place in churches that were not licensed and gazetted at the time the couples wedded.
Also to be amended is the electronic registration, marrying off minors as enshrined in the Mohammedan laws, and registration of divorce, among others.
Daily Monitor last Friday broke the story of how close to a thousand couples are in panic mode after it emerged that many of them wedded at Church of the Resurrection Bugolobi between 2006 and 2016 when the religious institution had not been officially gazetted to administer the holy marriages.
As of now, 1,655 places of worship have been licensed and gazetted to conduct weddings, 688 are registered but not yet gazetted while a further 652 are under general notice, meaning they have not yet also qualified to conduct weddings.
Mr Charles Nsimbi, the manager of civil registration at URSB, yesterday said there is an urgent need to amend 1904 Marriage Act because of the emerging issues.
