Despite reassurances to the contrary, the Government is permitting sharia law to creep into Britain

In a written answer to MPs, Justice Minister Bridget Prentice said that decisions made under Islamic sharia law can be accepted by English and Welsh family courts. She said that the rulings from sharia councils can be “rubber stamped by the courts, although she stressed that English family law would still apply.

She said parties in a dispute dealing with money or children could draft a consent order embodying the terms of the sharia judgement for submission to a formal court. The court can approve the order — creating a legal contract — if it decides the agreement is fair. However, if it is unhappy with the consent order, the court may ask for more information or for the couple to attend a hearing.

The Justice Minister, Jack Straw, supported these words at an Islamic conference earlier this week, when he said: “There is nothing whatever in English law that prevents people abiding by Sharia principles if they wish to, provided they do not come into conflict with English law. There is no question about that. But English law will always remain supreme, and religious councils subservient to it.”

Conservative shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said: “There can be no place for parallel legal systems in our country. It is right that agreements decided privately in family cases must be authorised by a judge applying English law if they are to have any legal effect. It is vital that in matrimonial disputes where a sharia council is involved, women’s rights are protected and judgments are non-binding.”

A Justice Ministry spokeswoman said that communities had the option to use religious courts, although their decisions were subject to national law and there may be “incompatibilities” between English and religious law, she said. “Any member of any community should know that they have the right to refer to an English court at any point, particularly in the event that they feel pressured or coerced to resolve an issue in a way with which they feel uncomfortable,” the spokeswoman added.

NSS Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood has been discussing the matter with Lord Avebury, who then tabled a written question to the Government: “How the English courts, when asked to agree a consent order embodying the terms of a settlement reached by the parties to a family dispute in a shar'ia court, will be able to ensure that it complies with English legal tenets, and in particular, that women who are parties to such consent orders have freely given their consent.”

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “The creeping ‘recognising’ of these councils is the first disastrous step in a gradual process of normalising sharia law in this country. Sharia arbitration disadvantages women and treats them unequally. Women within strict Muslim communities are going to be coerced into accepting decisions that severely discriminate against them. Who is to decide whether a decision by these councils has been willingly agreed, or whether women are being forced into accepting their inferior legal status by community and family pressure? The only way to ensure all are equal before the law is to have only one legal system – our secular system.”

Dr David Green, Director of the think tank Civitas said: “The problem is that sharia law reflects male-dominated Asian and Arabic cultures and that it cannot therefore be accepted as a legally valid basis even for settling private disagreements in a country like ours, where our law embodies the equal legal status of everyone, regardless of race, gender or religion. Our system is based on moral and legal equality or it is nothing. Further encouragement of sharia law, far from helping integration, will undermine the efforts of British Muslims struggling to evolve a version of Islam consistent with a tolerant and pluralistic society.”

Worst of all, according to Dr Green, the findings of a Civitas study currently nearing completion, “suggest that there could be links between sharia courts and so-called honour killings. We do not have evidence that courts have authorised killings or beatings, but by reinforcing the absolute authority of fathers over their daughters and of husbands over their wives there is a strong risk of inadvertently legitimising violent methods of private enforcement.”

Civitas is carrying out a major study of sharia courts in Britain, which is nearing completion. So far five sharia courts functioning under the Arbitration Act have been acknowledged in public. Our study suggests that many more courts are operating.

See also:
Unanswered questions about sharia
Women are the losers when we concede to Islamic hardliners
Somali woman stoned to death after ruling in sharia court
Is the Government telling the truth abut sharia law?
Seal of approval for sharia courts?

31 October 2008