h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

According to <./>//www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4749183.ece</.>, Sharia courts in Britain have "gone official" and can now try criminal cases. Is this a Good Thing?

TRiG.

Course it is. Women's Lib has gone too far in this country so this will redress the balance.

Cheeky brat!

Depends who's paying for it, I guess

It's fantastic. I'm so proud to live in a country where the role of the courts is now to uphold the judgements of a tribunal of religious elders.

Anyway, must dash. The better half is out with her (female) friend so I'm seeing if my solicitor can swing it so they're not allowed out without a male chaperone.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/sharialawuk/

Pfft. Like anyone even ever reads those.

Civil law: no problem...occupies their time and gets them out the way.

Criminal law: no way.

Criminal law no way; unless we give up the current criminal justice system and replace it entirely with this, two side by side systems opperating in entirely differnt ways doens't work.

I have a UK passport (I was eligible for both, and the UK one was cheaper). Does that make me a British citizen? Can I legitimately sign the petition? Just curious.

TRiG.

Dot Dot Dot has it right about the difference between criminal and civil law. The article is VERY CLEAR that it's about CIVIL law, not criminal law.

What these 'courts' are is a binding arbitration process, but it's only binding if both parties agree in advance. It's a bit like ACAS which offers binding arbitration for industrial disputes. Similar courts already exist for the Jewish faith, and anyone is entitled to agree to binding arbitration to settle disputes.

Having said that, I do think that there are potential causes for concern here. Although both parties must consent for the process to be binding, in cases of unequal power relations, or in cases where one or both parties might not understand their rights or the likely outcome under UK civil law, it's entirely legitimate to have concerns about whether the consent is informed under those circumstances. But such concerns would exist for any binding arbitration process. It would be interesting to know how the Jewish courts handles this potential problem.

It'll be interesting to watch the reporting of this to see how misleading and hysterical it is....

But let's be clear... this is VOLUNTARY ARBITRATION. The outcome of which can be upheld by CIVIL law. It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with criminal law, and further, sharia criminal law is not even close to being on the agenda. No-one except some Islamic fundamentalists (some peaceful, some not) seriously advocate it. It absolutely won't happen. There's more chance of Charles becoming absolute monarch.

"If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones."

Well I'd get rid of those too. One law for everyone, anything else is privilege.

At the very least there should have been conditions attached. Perhaps there were, but I have not heard of it. The thing about one man being worth two women should be right out.

It all just smells of turning inward, keeping it in the family, stopping outsiders from meddling in our business.

"Well I'd get rid of those too. One law for everyone, anything else is privilege."

I don't think it's that simple.

If I have a dispute with my neighbour, I've got four options (roughly speaking).

1. Settle it amicably between ourselves.
2. Get an arbitrator involved to help with the above.
3. Get an arbitrator involved, and agree to abide by his/her decision.
4. Resort to law.

If you ban all religious arbitration 'courts', you remove option 3 from adherents of those religions who respect their religious law. But consistency requires that you remove similar binding arbitration options from absolutely everyone. Wouldn't this be an erosion of our civil liberties and our options in the event of a dispute?

If I were ever in a dispute that I couldn't resolve, I'd be very interested in binding arbitration if I trusted the arbitrator as a way of keeping it out the courts and saving on solicitor's fees and all the extra stress.

Is this loss of this option a price worth paying?

There is going to be a difference between Scotland & England on this. In England, injured parties of a criminal offence such as assault can decline to prosecute. However, in Scotland a prosecution will be brought for the common good in cases of domestic violence irrespective of the views of the parties involved. This has been recognised as a significant factor in tackling domestic abuse in Scotland. The wording of this article appears to indicate that the courts will be obliged to uphold any decision made in arbitration as if it had been made in a real court in the first place. This will surely undermine the law in Scotland.

You're right, Otto. It does say civil law. But it also says domestic violence, which surely is (or, at least, should be) part of criminal law.

TRiG.

>>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.<<

My initial thought when I scanned it was that it was no big deal. It's civil law, not criminal, as has been said. But the domestic violence question, and the issue of inequality for women, isn't something I could ever call a good thing.

But that's religion for you...shrug.

Everyone is equal in the eyes of God..apart from...

Imagine someone so lacking in insight that they swallow the lie that some invisible entity toldsome bloke to write a book telling us all how to live our lives. Well you dont have to imagine there are lots of these people walking about. They do all manner of frankly stupid things tryingto curry favour with their invisible "creator".

If they are encouraged to use these alternatives to the overburdened standard legal system then good.

If it remains only civil cases where other idiots argue with each other about what Allah/Jesus/Nighthoover really wants them to do and then shut their noise when some expert Nighthooverist or whatever tells them what they think Nighthoover really wants then

The exceptions do not stretch to criminal disputes so issues that are important to wider society wont be directly affected so wife beating isnt going to go un punished in any other way than it routinely it is when its done by atheists who dont have special courts.

"You're right, Otto. It does say civil law. But it also says domestic violence, which surely is (or, at least, should be) part of criminal law."

The article isn't very well written. For instance, the headline is thoroughly misleading (in fact, it's downright wrong). And if you read the first few paragraphs only, you get the wrong impression entirely. And I can only conclude that most of the people who commented below the article are living in some kind of parallel universe.

Domestic violence remains a criminal matter. At the very end of the article, it explains that the domestic violence cases were heard when the complaints made through the police were withdrawn. Without knowing the details, it's difficult to know whether this is a good thing or not. I can imagine a case where the victim might feel more comfortable going to a religious court as a binding arbitrator rather than through the police and the criminal courts, and where anger management is an appropriate 'sentence' and the marriage has a better chance of working than if it went before the courts. It's not really that different to friends and family intervening and making the perpetrator face up to the anger problem.

But on the other hand, I can imagine cases where the victim might be bullied into going to a religious court rather than making a complaint to the police. However, accepting the religious court's ruling does not preclude a criminal complaint. Although the victim could no longer sue the perpetrator for damages, the victim could still make a formal complaint to police to investigate under criminal law. Unless I've got my law wrong, entering binding arbitration is only possible on a civil matter, not a criminal one.

Domestic Abuse in Scotland *is* a criminal matter though. The Police do not have the discretion to ignore it any more. Presumption of arrest is now common in Scotland (as I believe it is in the USA). This was specifically introduced because battered spouses frequently pleaded for charges not to be brought/cases to be dropped. The recognition is that it's in the common good for abusive husbands to be prosecuted.

I can't see how Scottish Police could legally ignore a case of Domestic Abuse just because the parties are Muslim.