Marriage between Qataris and Foreigners: The Legal Position under Qatari Law

Marriages between Qatari nationals and foreign spouses are a familiar feature of life in Doha, yet they are governed by a specific statutory regime whose requirements are frequently underestimated, and the order in which the necessary steps are taken has a direct bearing upon the validity of the marriage and upon the status of the spouse and any children of it.

The governing instrument is Law No. 21 of 1989 regulating marriage to foreigners, as amended by Law No. 11 of 1994, Law No. 8 of 2005, Council of Ministers Decision No. 36 of 2007 and Law No. 13 of 2015. Article 1 of that Law, in the form substituted by Law No. 8 of 2005, prohibits certain categories of Qatari citizen from marrying persons of foreign nationality other than nationals of the Gulf Cooperation Council States. Those categories comprise ministers, deputy ministers and the heads and deputy heads of institutions and public bodies; members of the diplomatic and consular corps; officers, non-commissioned officers and members of the Armed Forces, the Police and the other security agencies, whose position is subject to the approval of the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Interior or the competent head of security as the case may be; and students studying abroad on scholarship, whether funded by the State or at their own expense. The Council of Ministers may add further public offices to these categories where the public interest so requires, and the Emir retains a discretion to exempt individual citizens from the prohibition.

A Qatari male who does not fall within those categories may marry a foreign national subject to the approval of the Minister of Interior and upon satisfaction of the conditions set out in Article 2 of the Law, which include the existence of social reasons calling for the marriage, an appropriate difference in age between the parties, freedom from sexually transmitted disease, the absence of a conviction for an offence carrying a custodial sentence or involving dishonesty or immoral conduct within the State, and financial capacity to support his dependants. Article 3, as replaced by Law No. 11 of 1994, disapplies the conditions in Article 2-1 where the intended wife is a national of a Gulf Cooperation Council State, where she is a cousin of the Qatari male, or where she is born of a Qatari mother. A Qatari female who does not fall within the categories in Article 1 may, under Article 4, marry a foreign national for social reasons subject to the approval of the Minister of Interior and the consent of her legal guardian, and subject to conditions relating to the foreign husband's medical status, criminal record, admissibility to the State and financial capacity to support his dependants.

Applications for approval or for the endorsement of an existing marriage are examined by a committee constituted under Article 8 of the Law, as amended by Council of Ministers Decision No. 36 of 2007, comprising two representatives of the Ministry of Interior, together with one representative each of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme Council for Family Affairs. The consequences of disregarding this procedure are not merely administrative. Article 7 provides that any marriage concluded in violation of the Law after its entry into force shall be deemed null and void, and that a person falling within the first three categories of Article 1 who contravenes the Law may be removed from office, have his employment terminated or be transferred to another post, while a scholarship student who contravenes the Law forfeits the scholarship and may be required to refund the expenses and salaries received.

Where both spouses are foreign residents, the marriage is ordinarily concluded before the authority competent in respect of them and is then attested for use within the State. The documentary chain generally comprises notarisation in the country of celebration, attestation by the competent authorities of that country and by the Qatari mission there, and final attestation by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Doha, followed by legal translation into Arabic. Incomplete attestation is, in practice, the most frequent cause of delay in applications for residence and family sponsorship submitted under Law No. 21 of 2015 regulating the entry, exit and residence of expatriates.

As to the substantive law applicable to the marriage and its dissolution, the Family Law promulgated by Law No. 22 of 2006 constitutes the general codification of personal status in the State, and Article 3 of that Law directs the court, in the absence of an express provision, to apply the prevailing view of the Hanbali school, and thereafter the views of the other Sunni schools and the general principles of Islamic jurisprudence. Questions of the law applicable to non-Muslim spouses and of the appropriate forum are determined in accordance with the conflict-of-laws provisions of the Civil Code promulgated by Law No. 22 of 2004 and the rules of jurisdiction in the Civil and Commercial Procedure Law promulgated by Law No. 13 of 1990, and they are frequently the decisive strategic consideration in a marriage of mixed nationality. They ought therefore to be examined before a dispute arises rather than after proceedings have been commenced.

The nationality consequences follow a separate statute. Under Law No. 38 of 2005 on the acquisition of Qatari nationality, descent from a Qatari father is the principal route by which nationality is acquired, while the children of a Qatari mother married to a foreign national, and a foreign wife of a Qatari national, are dealt with under the provisions of that Law governing naturalisation and priority in its grant. It should also be noted that Article 6 of Law No. 21 of 1989, in relation to marriages endorsed under that Article, provides for the grant of residence to the children where the mother resides in the State, the issue of Qatari travel documents to minor children, treatment of the children as Qataris in relation to education, healthcare and employment, and priority for adult children in the acquisition of nationality.

Couples contemplating a marriage of this kind are accordingly advised to obtain the required approval before the marriage is concluded rather than to seek endorsement afterwards, to retain attested Arabic translations of every foreign certificate, and to take advice at an early stage upon custody, maintenance, inheritance and sponsorship, since each of these matters is considerably easier to regulate by agreement in advance than to litigate once the relationship has broken down.