Sharia law be granted legal recoginition

[dimpy.handa]

Sharia courts are cheaper and more accessible than the the civil courts of the secular state. This is especially true for minorities who may be poorer, alienated from majority power-structures, lacking in fluency in the language of the state legal system. For these reasons for many Muslims the alternative to a Sharia court is not going to the state judicial system, but not having any access to justice at all.

 

[dimpy.handa]

It depends what you mean by legal recognition.

English Law has to be the starting point - no system can co-exist without the understanding that the law of the land over-rules all.

However, if Sharia courts are used for dispute resolution and family issues - civil matters - and all parties agree to abide by the court's decisions, I see no problem. There are many organisations which offer such services - Jewish courts, RC and C of E Church courts, ACAS, Relate - where people take small disputes, rather than resort to law. Surely people finding ways to sort out civil differences without clogging up the courts has to be a good thing.

Such courts, Sharia or others, have no place in the criminal justice system - but they are a useful civil option if people choose freely to use them.

 

[swatiraohnlu]

Sharia is a very harsh system which is in conflict with the rights and values of western secular societies. As well as prescribing extreme punishments such as stonings, floggings, amputations and public hangings, Sharia also prevents Muslims from converting to other faiths, on pain of death. Women are treated by Sharia as inferior to men, with fewer rights in divorce cases (only men can start divorce proceedings and they are almost always given custody of older children) and over inheritance. We should not allow such an oppressive system to operate in a modern state.