Sharia Courts in Britain

[xoxoxoBruce]

It seems that this Times article confirms Britain has officially sanctioned Sharia Courts for Muslims in Britain.
This is how it came about.

Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.
It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.
Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.

Siddiqi said: “We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.”

One country with two legal systems sounds like a bad idea to me.

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons. The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment. In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Siddiqi said that in the domestic violence cases, the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.

Nope, don't think it's a good idea at all.

[DanaC]

Nor do I; however, I think the way to prevent it is to remove all faith-based arbitration bodies from the legal system. As long as other groups have the right to seek arbitration from the elders/authorities of their religious bodies then to disallow Sharia is to take a moral stance against Islam in law: that seems inappropriate to me.

Remove all faith-based arbitration (in terms of their legal standing) and the problem is gone. Fairly.

[DanaC]

Just as an additional point: we are hearing more and more these days, how this parent or that child was persuaded by clergymen, not to take issues of abuse to the civil authorities. How many catholic victims of domestic abuse do we think the catholic arbitration system persuaded back to their violent husbands and fathers? How open do we think religious arbitration bodies (some of which have legal standing, such as in catholic and jewish arbitration systems) generally are to solutions that might involve the breaking up of families, or the subversion of dearly held gender beliefs?

Sharia seems, to me, and probably to most people in the Cellar, a very extreme version of faith-based law. But let's not paint the horns too firmly onto it: that lets others, with a similar guilt-load off the hook entirely and sows dissent and fear where it isn't needed.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm not letting anyone off the hook, if people of a particular religion want to use their own arbitrators, and all parties agree, to settle contracts and disagreements of that ilk, fine and dandy. But anytime British law has been broken, especially when there is a victim and not just a disagreement, the British legal system should not acquiesce to any arbitration system.

[Griff]

I didn't know Britain had such a system in place. It may allow minorities to preserve their culture, but the potential for coercion and abuse of the weak are too great. It just seems strange for immigrants to bring their law with them, from an American perspective, many of our ancestors came here to divorce themselves from old world power structures. It is too easy to extrapolate the eventual failure of Western Civilization from this. Reactionaries would have us revert to our old oppressive power structures in response to theirs, but I'd rather see some respect for what we've built over the last couple hundred years with a focus on identifying the big ideas that cannot be subverted. We need to look for the values Westerners find universal.

[glatt]

I would have no problem with Sharia courts for civil law, if both parties agree without coercion to enter into that arbitration, but for criminal law, that should be left up to the government.

[Sundae]

It's not used for criminal law.
In the cases of domestic violence, the women withdrew the complaints with the Police - this happens in many, many domestic violence cases, regardless of the faith of those involved. The Police cease investigations simply because of the difficulty in obtaining a conviction when the victim will not give evidence.

I'm not a fan of Sharia or having a two tier system, but please don't confuse these "Courts" with the law of the land. They can operate only within the framework of the law, and will at least keep some disputes out of the courts.

[DanaC]

It is supposedly for civil law (ie domestic disputes). The problems tend to come in where 'domestic' actions constitute a crime. As I mentioned, other religious arbitration bodies may well see fit to advise an abused wife to stay with her husband and suggest anger management for the man.

It's not about 'immigrants' bringing their laws and culture with them. It's about allowing people of different faiths to arbitrate their own 'domestic' and civil disputes. We already have such bodies in place and with a similar legal standing for other groups (such as the jewish arbitration 'courts').

[classicman]

We already have laws here. I don't think we need another set.
Especially Sharia.

No thanks.

[Happy Monkey]

Arbitration is a bad idea in general, especially with regard to individuals. It is seldom agreed upon freely by both parties. If Muslims have found a way to inadvertently discredit it, that's at least a silver lining.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Arbitration is a bad idea in general, especially with regard to individuals. It is seldom agreed upon freely by both parties. If Muslims have found a way to inadvertently discredit it, that's at least a silver lining.

*nods* I guess. It just worries me that it all feeds into the growing islamophobia in Britain.

[Happy Monkey]

Yeah, that's why I said "silver lining" instead of a "good thing". Discrediting arbitration is good, but doing so in this way relies on everybody being afraid of Muslims. And, because of that, it's only talked about with regard to Muslims.

People are saying "Sharia is a parallel law system in Britain!", instead of "arbitration is a parallel law sytem all over the place, usually dominated by corporations, but now some religious fundamentalists are taking advantage of it!"

[glatt]

Why is arbitration bad for individuals? It's cheaper in legal fees. To arbitrators generally side with the big guy or something?

[Happy Monkey]

They're generally chosen by the big guy, and forced on the little guy by mandatory arbitration agreements. If the arbitrators want to get chosen, they'd better be a good investment.

Feingold has a proposed law to make such agreements unenforceable.

He may be on his way out.

[glatt]

So in big guy vs. little guy situations, I would agree with you, but in little guy vs. little guy situations, is there anything wrong with them then?