One Law for All campaign launches with call for new legislative curbs on sharia courts

New legislation may be needed to curb the activities of informal sharia courts that are operating in Britain, said the organisers of the One Law For All campaign, which was launched at the House of Lords this week.

The meeting was attended by peers who are interested in challenging the growth and influence of Sharia Councils and Muslim Arbitration Tribunals. Campaign organiser, Maryam Namazie, commented that sharia law was undesirable in any form as it sets up conflicts between both human rights and civil law in Britain. “Even in civil matters, Sharia law is discriminatory, unfair and unjust, particularly against women and children,” she said.

Of particular concern was whether women were being coerced into using these courts and tribunals against their best interests.

NSS Vice President and chairperson of the Lawyers Secular Society, Carla Revere, explained how the Sharia Councils and Arbitration Systems differed and how they were ruling on family matters — divorce, child custody and inheritance matters — that were outside their legal scope. She quoted Justice Minister Jack Straw, who said in Parliament recently, in response to a question about sharia law courts in the UK: “Arbitration is not a system of dispute resolution that may be used in family cases. Therefore no draft consent orders embodying the terms of an agreement reached by the use of a Sharia council have been enforced within the meaning of the Arbitration Act 1996 in matrimonial proceedings”. Therefore the decisions of Muslim Arbitration Tribunals are not legally binding in that they are not enforceable in the UK courts.

Gina Khan, a secular Muslim who has been fighting for justice on these issues, spoke of her own and her family’s experiences at the hands of sharia justice. She spoke passionately about the way extremists within the Muslim community were exerting control through giving the impression that “real Muslims” would settle their disputes using only “God’s Sacred Law”. This, she said, led to injustice to Muslim women, many of whom didn’t know they had rights in British civil courts.

Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, said: “Sharia is becoming a growth industry in Britain, putting growing pressure on vulnerable people in the Muslim community to use sharia councils and tribunals to resolve disputes and family matters, when they could use the civil courts. Sharia “law” is not arrived at by the democratic process, is not Human Rights compliant, and there is no right of appeal.”

Mr Wood pointed to the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal’s own website, which says “MAT will therefore, for the first time, offer the Muslim community a real and true opportunity to settle disputes in accordance with Islamic Sacred Law with the knowledge that the outcome as determined by MAT will be binding and enforceable.” It proudly shows photographs of the recently retired Lord Chief Justice and Justice minister Lord Hunt claiming various types of endorsement by them.”

Carla Revere added: “Such self-appointed, unregulated tribunals are gaining in strength; they increasingly hold themselves up as courts with as much force as the law of the land, but are not operating with the same controls and safeguards. They appear to be operating in the area of family law and some even in criminal matters, where they have no right to make binding decisions as they claim to do. Even if the decisions were binding, UK courts do not uphold contractual decisions that are contrary to UK law or public policy. We call on the Government and legal establishment to stand up for the vulnerable and tackle this significant and growing problem, rather than ignoring it.”

Visit the one Law for All Campaign website
Please add your name to the petition and disseminate this as widely as possible.

See also:

Britain struggles with sharia
Listen to Maryam Namazie talking about the meeting on Woman’s Hour (she was also on Radio 5 Live and Radio Scotland)
Telegraph’s Catholic blogger lauds the campaign
Read a speech delivered at the launch by NSS Executive Director Keith Porteous Wood

12 December 2008