In two separate cases, divorced husbands are at risk of being obliged to pay their former wives a hefty sum known as a mahr, or mandatory payment. Iranian brides receive these in the form of money or property from a groom or his father when a couple is married; the payment then legally becomes her property. In some cases, the bride must settle for an IOU.
Notably, the requirement of mahr is mentioned more than once in the Quran and Hadith.
The problem pertains to all those couples who married in Iran, then settled in Sweden and later divorced, according to Ida Damgaard, the Secretary of Justice of the Swedish Supreme Court.
Fria Tider quoted Damgaard as saying that one case is related to a couple who married in Iran in 2006 and shorty afterwards arrived in Sweden.
The District Court ruled that the case should be handled in accordance with Swedish law, which means that an Iranian woman's former husband is not obliged to honor the mahr.
In March 2015, however, an appeals court reviewed the decision, ruling that "the Iranian law should be applied with respect to the agreement on mahr," according to the newspaper.
Even though it is still unclear what decision the Supreme Court will take, many analysts wonder whether the use of a foreign law will be a commonplace practice in Sweden if a precedent is created.
