Confucianist couple lose case

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)