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🇱🇧 Lebanon · specialised court

Personal Status Courts

محاكم الأحوال الشخصية / Personal Status Courts

Reviewed· 2026-08-03Nationwide

Fifteen recognised communities operate their own courts — Sunni and Shia Sharia courts, Druze courts, and the courts of the various Christian denominations — each applying different rules on divorce, custody and succession. There is no civil marriage in Lebanon: couples marry abroad, most commonly in Cyprus, and the marriage is then registered, which means the applicable law on a later divorce depends on where and how the marriage was contracted.

How the court is constituted

Tier
specialised
Court type
Confessional personal-status courts
Jurisdiction
Marriage, divorce, custody and inheritance for members of each of the recognised religious communities, applying that community's own law.
Seat
Nationwide
Established
1936

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