Academic

?Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.?

By Ann Bartow

That’s the first sentence of this article from the online version of the London Times. It reports in part:

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.

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. …

The article additionally notes:

… 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. …

Via Reclusive Leftist, where Violet writes:

I suppose the defenders of this policy argue that it?s okay because the Muslim women have to ?voluntarily? submit to the authority of the sharia courts before the rulings are handed down. But it makes no sense ? absolutely no sense ? to talk about women under the thumb of patriarchal domination ?voluntarily? submitting to their own oppression. As a rule, women and girls in a patriarchy lack the social, financial, and psychological autonomy to buck masculine rule. Dig it: that?s how patriarchy works.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on October 14, 2008 (boomark / email).