Family
Codified Islamic personal status, with separate rules for Christian communities
Muslim personal status runs under Law 25/1920 and Law 25/1929 as amended, with the 2000 procedural reform introducing khul divorce. Christian communities apply their own denominational rules on marriage and divorce.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Family courts hear all personal status matters. The applicable substantive law depends on the parties' religion, and inter-religious cases default to Islamic law.
- Deadline — Divorce by talaq must be registered with a notary within 30 days
- Deadline — Family court mediation is a mandatory first stage before adjudication
Governing law
- Law 25/1920 and Law 25/1929 on personal status, as amended
- Law 1/2000 on personal status procedure — introduced khul
- Law 10/2004 establishing the family courts
- Law 126/2008 raising the marriage age to 18
In practice
Law 1/2000 is the pivotal reform because it gave a wife a unilateral route out of marriage — khul, in which she returns the dower and forgoes financial claims — where previously she needed to prove statutory grounds. It was procedural in form and substantive in effect. Custody of young children ordinarily rests with the mother, with ages set by statute and amended upward over time, but guardianship over property and major decisions remains with the father, so custody and guardianship must be analysed separately. For Christians, the applicable rules are those of the relevant denomination, which produces markedly different divorce availability between Coptic Orthodox and other communities, and conversion between religions has been used to change the governing law, which the courts have addressed with restrictions.