Judgment No. CCZ 12/2015 29 Const. Application No. 79/14 to marriage. Marriage was to be for adult persons only and consent to marriage given on behalf of the intending spouses was prohibited. The problem with Article 16(1) and (2) of the UDHR was not only that it was a declaration with no binding force on Member States, it also did not specify what the age of majority should be. In 1962 the Marriage Convention was expected to resolve the issue of the standard age of majority for purposes of marriage. The Marriage Convention required States Parties to take legislative action to specify a minimum age for marriage. It stipulated that no marriage shall be legally entered into by a person under the minimum age, except where a competent authority granted a dispensation as to the age, for serious reasons in the interest of the intending spouses. According to a non-binding recommendation accompanying the Marriage Convention, States Parties were directed not to specify a minimum age for marriage less than 15 years. States Parties were permitted to specify a minimum age for marriage by reference to what they considered to be the age of puberty. The problem with the Marriage Convention is that it did not specify for States Parties a minimum age of marriage. It left States Parties free to set their own minimum ages for marriage. As a result States Parties set minimum ages of marriage as low as sixteen years for girls whilst setting different and usually higher ages for boys. The other problem was that the Marriage Convention created exceptions permitting marriages of girls below the minimum age where government officials approved of the marriages. The effect of these provisions was that once a girl was married, however young she was, she was treated under domestic law as an adult. Laws for the protection of children no longer reached her.