Legal penalty of divorce outside the religious court in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam

Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam are Muslim countries located in Southeast Asia that have made reforms in marriage law. One of the trends in family law reform in the modern Islamic world is the imposition of legal penalty. For example, legal penalty for divorce outside the court. Although legal penalty for divorce outside the court has not become a general portrait of the law or regulation in Muslim countries, its existence is increasingly considered and remains one of the hot topics in the community of Muslim World today.

This research is a library reseach, which is a study done through the study of library materials in the form of laws, books, journals, or other sources. The techniques in this study were library studies, while data collection was using primary and secondary data. The research approach used is the comparative approach.
In this research, there are three formulations of the problem, including: 1) What are the differences of rules and penalties in divorce outside the religious courts of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam? 2) What are the similarities of rules and penalties in divorce outside the religious courts of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam? 3) How is the implementation of penalties of divorce outside the religious court in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei Darussalam?

The results of this research are; 1) The difference in penalty ruling in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei lies in the imposition of sanctions, where in Indonesia penalty for divorce outside the court do not yet exist, in Malaysia each country has different rules related to the amount of penalty imposed because Malaysia is a Federal State, whereas in Brunei sanctions apply equally and comprehensively in the Brunei region. 2) In the draft of Undang-undang Hukum Materiil Pengadilan Agama (HMPA) in Indonesia form of penalty for divorce outside the religious court is fines and confinement. Malaysia and Brunei also have the same form of penalty. 3) In Indonesia penalty for divorce outside the court hearing have not been applied. While penalty for divorce outside the religious court in Malaysia are carried out after the divorce is registered at the Syariah Court. In Brunei the penalty for divorce outside the religious court is imposed if the divorce is registered for more than 7 (seven) days from the first day of pronunciation of divorce outside the religious court.