Sultan of Brunei divorces third wife

The Sultan of Brunei's Hassanal Bolkiah (centre) has divorced his third wife after five years of marriage

Thursday, June 17, 2010
AFP

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN — The sultan of the small oil-rich kingdom of Brunei has divorced his third wife and stripped her of all royal titles after five years of marriage.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, 63, divorced Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim, 30, a former Malaysian television journalist, whom he married in 2005, according to state television late Wednesday.

"The Sultan has divorced his wife Azrinaz Mazhar Hakim and all the royal titles that have been awarded to the Sultan's former wife have been withdrawn," Grand chamberlain Haji Alauddin Haji Abu Bakar announced on Radio Television Brunei.

He said the divorce was granted based on "special reasons" but no other details were given. Rumours of the royal break-up had been circulating in the capital in recent weeks.

During their marriage, Azrinaz bore two children, adding to the Sultan's 10 heirs from earlier marriages.

The pair married in a private ceremony in Kuala Lumpur in 2005.

The ruler remains married to his first wife Anak Hajah Saleha and their son Prince Al Muhtadee Billah Bolkiah, is the present heir to the throne.

He married his second wife, former stewardess Mariam Abdul Aziz in October 1981 but divorced her in 2003.

Hassanal Bolkiah came to the throne as the kingdom's 29th sultan in 1967 upon the abdication of his father. He has a reported fortune of 20 billion dollars built on Brunei's oil and gas reserves.

Ranariddhs reach a settlement

Prince Norodom Ranariddh and Princess Marie Norodom Ranariddh appear together at the former headquarters of Funcinpec in October 2006. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Thursday, 10 June 2010
Vong Sokheng
The Phnom Penh Post

PHNOM Penh Municipal Court has approved the divorce of Prince Norodom Ranariddh and
Princess Marie Norodom Ranariddh, and ruled that the latter is entitled to half of the former Funcinpec president’s estate, court officials said Wednesday.

Chev Keng, the court’s president, said the decision was handed down on Tuesday after the couple agreed to a reconciliation deal.

“The court decided to issue the verdict of divorce after the two parties reached an agreement to share the property,” he said.

Liv Sovanna, the lawyer for Norodom Ranariddh, declined to comment on the ruling on Wednesday, describing it as a “personal issue”.

Chea Chanboribo, the prince’s personal spokesman, declined to comment beyond saying that Norodom Ranariddh is currently travelling “back and forth” between homes in Malaysia and Phnom Penh.

Norodom Ranariddh filed for divorce from Princess Marie in 2006 after meeting and falling in love with Ouk Phalla, with whom he now has a son. Ouk Phalla, a former dancer with the Royal ballet, was at the time married to former Funcinpec minister Veng Sereyvuth.

Originally elected president of Funcinpec in 1992, Norodom Ranariddh led the party to a stunning victory in the UNTAC-sponsored elections in May 1993, at which point he became first prime minister. He was ousted as a result of factional fighting with the Cambodian People’s Party in 1997.

Women Look To New Law for a Fair Shake

Cambodian women line up to vote at a polling station in a previous election, in Kampong Speu province. (Photo: AP)

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Wednesday, 05 May 2010

"The mother has the right to look after a four-year-old."

Bou Somaly, a 43-year-old mother of one, recently divorced her husband. In the process, she lost her son. Phnom Penh Municipal Court awarded custody of the boy, La Sany, to his father, in what Bou Somaly says was an arbitrary decision.

Bou Somaly, who has filed a complaint with the rights group Licadho seeking help in her case, says she was asked to bring her son to the court. She did, and when La Sany saw his father, he ran to him and hugged him.

“The judge asked him, ‘Do you like your father?’” Bou Somaly recalled in a phone interview recently.

When the boy nodded, the court gave him over to his dad.

It may be too late for Bou Somaly to regain custody of her son, but she says other women might be spared such separation under a new draft law for separations and other disputes.

The drafted Family Dispute Law clarifies divorce procedures in the courts. It allows property to be divvied out by judges, or seized before it is sold off.

It also clarifies how the courts should determine child custody.

“The mother has the right to look after a four-year-old,” Bou Somaly said.

According to the new law, the courts should award a child to the mother up to the age of six, about the time he or she enters school, or the age when a child “knows right from wrong.”

Bou Somaly said she hopes to have a chance to appeal her case under those rules.

The draft was passed by the National Assembly April 26 and has yet to be signed into law. It must also be promulgated through the courts. But already it has some women hoping they will get a fair shake in a system that is typically skewed toward husbands and fathers.

Lam Arun, a 31-year-old mother of two who has filed for divorce at Phnom Penh Municipal Court, to leave her allegedly abusive husband, says she wants to have a hearing under the new law. With it, she hopes to have custody of her children and a fair share of the couple’s property.

“The new law will help provide justice to my case,” she told VOA Khmer as she waited outside court Tuesday.

Meas Sokunthea, a divorce lawyer for the Cambodian Defenders Project, said the new law is better than the past law because it provides “full, clear meaning” for parties and judges.

The law may be just in time, as some evidence points to growing dissatisfaction with divorce proceedings.

In 2009, Licadho received 155 reports from women who felt they’d been treated unfairly in their divorces. In the first three months of this year alone, the group has received 55.

Am Sam Ath, a lead investigator for Licadho, said that under the new law, those numbers could decline.

“The parties in divorces will receive fairness from the new law,” he said. “Because the court has the right to decisions in suspending property sales and can punish someone who violates the court order.”

Thong Saron, a Ratanakkiri provincial judge who has had to make divorce decisions in the past, said this week the new law will “make it comfortable and clear to judges, in order to make decisions in divorce cases more fairly than before.”

The former law had made it difficult for him to make decisions, he said, because Cambodians traditionally keep their money together. Now, he said, the court can confiscate property before either party sells their goods and pockets the money.

Cambodian husband takes half the house in divorce - literally

This divided half of the house is the wife's ownership (Photo: Chauk Chey, Koh Santepheap)

Thu, 02 Oct 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - A Cambodian couple decided to circumvent the country's notoriously corrupt and expensive court system in their divorce case by dividing their house in half, literally, local media reported Thursday. The Khmer-language Koh Santepheap newspaper featured a front-page photo of a precariously perched half of the stilted former home of Meuon Rima and his ex-wife Nhang, both 40, which Rima sawed with surgical precision down the middle.

Rima, who sought a divorce on the grounds that his wife refused to nurse him during a recent illness, was last seen driving away from the village in south-eastern Prey Veng province with his half of the home, the daily reported.

It was not known where he had gone with his very detached portion, it said, adding that Rima had not felt the same need to divvy up the couple's two teenaged children, both of whom he left with Nhang.

Under Cambodian law, assets are divided equally between husband and wife in the event of a divorce.