Confucianist couple lose case

SURABAYA: Budi Wijaya and Lanny Guito, a couple of Chinese descent who were married in a Confucianist ceremony, lost their case yesterday against a regional civil registry office which had refused to recognize their marriage.

The Surabaya State Administrative Court ruled that the civil registry office was abiding by government regulations when it did not recognize the marriage because Confucianism is not one of the country's five officially-recognized religions.

Budi and Lanny have been denied a marriage certificate, without it they cannot get a birth certificate for their, as yet unnamed, baby daughter.

The panel of judges decided that neither they nor the registry office had the right or authority to decide whether Confucianism was a religion or merely a philosophy. "It is not up to us to decide," said presiding judge Mudjiono.

Budi said he was not surprised by his defeat. "Everybody knows I could have won..but there are invisible factors that helped defeat me," he said, without elaborating. "I have let my fellow Confucianist followers down with this defeat."

The couple and their lawyer Trimoelja D. Soerjadi said they may appeal.

Moslem scholar Abdurrahman Wahid, who said earlier that the government had no right to limit the number of religions that its subjects may embrace, attended the court hearing yesterday.

"The court ruling was based only on legal and formal aspects of the law, not on justice," he charged. (27)