ABU DHABI // A husband who accused his wife of cheating on him does not have sufficient grounds for divorce, the Court of Cassation has ruled.
The man, from an Arab country, filed a divorce lawsuit in which he alleged she was committing adultery. He said she repeatedly left the house without his permission, leaving their child behind with the housemaid.
The Personal Status Court initially refused to grant the divorce, ruling that one could not just claim a spouse was cheating and expect the court to believe it.
The man appealed, but the Court of Cassation upheld the original verdict.
The ruling said the husband should have presented evidence of her alleged affair. This could have been a Criminal Court ruling before the divorce that proved she was cheating.
Alternatively, he should have sought four witnesses to her adultery.
Failing this, he could have requested a Sharia oath, known as a Mulaana, in which the husband swears four times that he is telling the truth, adding: “May Allah’s curse be on me if I am lying.”
In Sharia, if a person accuses another of adultery and does not provide four witnesses, then they face 80 lashes. As verses from the Quran say: “And those who accuse honourable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them [with] 80 stripes and never [afterwards] accept their testimony. They indeed are evil doers.”
However, in the case of a husband making accusations against his wife, if he is adamant he is telling the truth he could request Mulaana to avoid the lashes.
The verses continue to say: “As for those who accuse their wives but have no witnesses except themselves; let the testimony of one of them be four testimonies, [swearing] by Allah that he is of those who speak the truth; (6) And yet a fifth, invoking the curse of Allah on him if he is of those who lie.”
If the woman wants to avoid the punishment she could take the Mulaana oath herself.
Once the oaths have been sworn, the couple are divorced for ever.
“In normal divorce, a husband can return to his wife, but after Mulaana the couple can never return to each other,” said Emirati lawyer Habeeb Al Houssani.
Mr Al Houssani said in this case the women must undergo a medical examination to see if a sexual relationship occurred outside of marriage.
hdajani@thenational.ae
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Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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