"Sham marriages" law .

[noxlumos]

Does anyone have any thoughts about why the Govt were previously able to ban persons of any other religion marrying if one was an immigrant but not if they were both Church of England and married in a church?

As a Catholic I find it distasteful that if I had chosen to marry an non British citizen from outside of the EU I could have been prevented in Britain yet my neighbour who is C of E could not have been stopped as long as he had a C of E service.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/10042006/325/sham-marriages-law-illegal.html

Thankfully this absurdity has now for the time being at least been dealth with, but I for one find it humiliating and wondered how other people of all religions feel about it?

[jno]

odd, but I presume it was an outcome of the fact that there's a state religion here, with bishops in the House of Lords and so on. You'd probably have the same sort of trouble in Afghanistan. And are Catholics still barred from the throne, or did they sort that out?

[Dolly1308]

Well it appeared to work ,a tenfold drop in sham marriages ,mission (nearly) accomplished !

[sp1814]

But was that the actual reason the number of sham marriages fell, or was it down to improved vetting/screennig processes?

[undercovers]

if it was a sham marriage then those involved wouldn't care which church they married in i.e. they would just get married in the anglican church if that was easiest... so the only people that the old law messed with was the law abiding and religious would be immigrants rather than those involved in any set up wedding arrangements...

disproportionate and discriminatory good its been removed - clearly rules need to be in place but i feel that equality shouldn't be sacrificed

[JudgeJ]

The judge said that he found the rules to be incompatible with human rights law because people who wanted to marry within the Church of England were not subject to the same scrutiny as those choosing another type of wedding. The reason that C of E marriages were declared exempt from the rules was that the government considered that the Church had robust procedures in place to prevent such sham marriages taking place. Lawyers for the home secretary had argued that the exemption for the Church of England was valid because there was no evidence of any sham marriage rackets attempting to use Anglican ceremonies, whereas there was plentiful evidence that ministers of other faiths had countenanced such marriages.

When the measures went through Parliament the House of Lords complained that the Act had not received proper scrutiny. By this judgement, they seem to have been proved correct.

So once again we see yet another example of a poorly drafted law, introduced in haste, which has fallen foul of the Human Rights Legislation which was incorporated (by the present government) into this country�s legislation.

In answer to jno�s point about Catholics being barred from the throne, this is still the case. The Act of Settlement of 1701 is still in force and is probably the only piece of anti-Catholic legislation still on the statute books. It was passed in response to circumstances which existed towards the end of the reign of William III and, among a number of other impositions, prohibits Catholics, those who are illegitimate or who are adopted, from succeeding to the throne.