Customary Marriage (Registration) Act

Defines terms used in the Act, including “certificate”, “currency point”, “customary marriage”, “date of marriage”, “guardian”, “Minister”, “monogamous marriage”, “monthly returns”, “prescribed”, “register”, “registrar”, and “Registrar General”.

Specifies that every subcounty, the cities of Kampala, Jinja, Masaka and Mbale and areas in Schedule 2 are marriage districts for registering customary marriages and permits the Minister, by statutory order, to alter, amalgamate or subdivide those districts and to amend Schedule 2.

All subcounty chiefs and specified town clerks shall be registrars for their respective marriage districts.

If persons who are not members of any indigenous tribe of Uganda intend to contract a customary marriage, one party must sign and give the district registrar a notice in the prescribed form.

If a person giving notice cannot write or understand English, they may place a mark or cross on the notice in the presence of a literate person who must attest to it in the prescribed form.

Every registrar must supply forms of notice to persons who apply, on payment of the prescribed fee.

The registrar must enter received notices in a customary marriage notice book and publish the notice on the office outer door until a certificate under section 25 is granted or three months pass; the notice book may be inspected during office hours without fee.

The registrar must issue a prescribed certificate between 21 days and 3 months after notice on payment of the fee, but must not issue it until satisfied by affidavit of residency, age/consent and prohibited kinship; the affidavit may be sworn before the registrar or a magistrate who must explain prohibited degrees and penalties.

The Minister may, on affidavit proof that there is no lawful impediment and that any necessary consent has been obtained, dispense with giving notice and the registrar's certificate and may grant a licence authorising a registrar to celebrate the marriage.

People with required consent or who know of a reason can enter a caveat saying "Forbidden" before the registrar issues a certificate; the registrar must not issue the certificate until the caveat is removed.

An objection signed and duly authenticated in the person's country of residence is sufficient evidence to object to the marriage of a person who resides outside Uganda.

If an objection or caveat is entered against issuing a marriage certificate, the registrar must refer the matter to the chief magistrate; that court must summon the intended parties and the person who lodged the caveat, require that person to show cause, and hear and determine the case summarily.

If the chief magistrate decides the certificate should be issued, the judge must remove a caveat in the customary marriage notice book (cancelling the word “Forbidden”, writing “Cancelled by order of the High Court” below and signing), then the registrar must issue the certificate, and the marriage may proceed as if no caveat had been entered.

The chief magistrate may award compensation and costs to the injured party when a caveat was entered on insufficient grounds.

The Minister may make regulations under the Act covering a set of specified matters (forms, fees, registers, certified copies, signing, hours for registration, details to registrars, and generally anything required).

Parties to customary marriages celebrated before 1 October 1973 who had not registered by 30 September 1978 must register the marriage and pay a registration fee not exceeding two hundred fifty currency points, in the manner the Minister may provide by statutory order.

The Minister responsible for finance may, by statutory instrument and with Cabinet approval, amend Schedule 1 to this Act.