There is a petition to ban Sharia councils (incorrectly described as Sharia courts), and given my often stated critical views of Islam, you might think I would be supportive. But that is not the case, as I find myself in full agreement with HM government’s position (it is not often I write that!) and I think their response to the petition is correct (emphasis added):
Sharia councils are not courts in England and Wales. They cannot legally enforce any decision and must operate within the rule of national law. The Government has no plan to change this position.
Many British people of different faiths follow religious codes and practices. The Government does not prevent individuals from seeking to regulate their lives through religious beliefs or cultural traditions. Nothing in the law prevents people abiding by Sharia principles if they wish, provided their actions do not conflict with the law. If they do conflict, then national law prevails.
Sharia councils are not courts, and they are not in any sense part of the legal system in this country. Sharia councils have no legal power to enforce any decisions they make. Any religious council, or other body through which people seek to resolve their disputes, must operate within the rule of national law.
The Government understands that there are concerns about Sharia councils. The full, independent review into the application of Sharia law in England and Wales, launched by the previous Home Secretary on 26 May, will enhance our understanding of any misuse of Sharia law, and the extent of any problem where it may exist.
And I would have to say that is a very good response. You cannot ban Sharia councils without the state sweeping away yet another layer of civil society and replacing it with yet more top-down statism. Voluntary arbitration is a long standing tradition in this country and a Sharia council is just that: voluntary arbitration. The amount of misinformation and disinformation swirling around is remarkable. Such councils cannot involve anyone who is not willing to participate, and cannot impose decisions that are repugnant to secular national law. It is no different to two parties deciding to settle some dispute over a cup of tea in front of a Church of England vicar. Well ok, a Sharia council might involve Turkish coffee rather than tea. But in either case, neither is permitted to step outside the bounds of secular law. If there is any role for the state, and that is a big ‘if’, then it might be to educate people from minority communities that such councils are entirely voluntary and people are free to say “No”, or even “Hell no!” when they are suggested as a means of arbitration.
provided their actions do not conflict with the law. If they do conflict, then national law prevails.
But we all know they will conflict, and the Government will pretend they don’t, and will continue to pretend until lots of really bad stuff is happening, at which point they will blandly say “lessons will be learnt”.
Authoritarians are quite happy to don the robes of liberalism when it suits them.
Well yes.
But it seems vital that every person living in Britain should be taught how the law works. Firstly because all are expected to obey it, and ignorance is no defence. Secondly because all must know that they have the right to avail themselves of it.
Seems to me that Law should be compulsory in schools, and for those wanting citizenship. Else there will be a significant number of people living at a disadvantage.
I appreciate compulsion is out of favour here, but the law is compulsory so knowledge of it should be also.
“Sharia Councils” should indeed NOT be banned by government – indeed they should be totally ignored by government (all parts of government).
The formal legal position is that “Sharia Councils” have no legal powers – but this must also be the unofficial position. Government officials must not, in their behaviour, give any impression that they “recognise” the decisions of “Sharia Councils” – in relation to women, children, or any matter at all.
The United Kingdom is not Canada – we must not see government ministers, or the Prime Minister (like the absurd Man-Child Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the weird Liberal Party Monarchy they have in Canada), visiting Islamic bases and gushing over their support for Sharia Law. And promising yet more attacks on Freedom of Speech and more attacks on liberty in general.
What others said, plus: the Sharia system is of course voluntary, but only in theory (Paul mentioned women, quite pointedly). That said, I still agree with Perry. I imagine there are already laws in place in the UK allowing the government to step in when there is credible suspicion that a person is being forced to observe Sharia (or the Jewish law, or any other religious law, for that matter) – i.e. that the system is not operating on a voluntary basis. Whether such laws are being observed and enforced in practice is a separate question.
I have never heard of any activist demanding that a muslim baker provide a cake with … well, any of a good many messages one could dream up – or indeed pictures. I have never heard of any judge ruling that the muslim baker must comply in such a case.
If I were aware of such cases, I would think that
– the activist and judge were in the wrong
– at least the activist and judge were being bravely and consistently wrong
(As the saying goes, “If you’re so brave, say that about islam” – or in this case, “to islam”.)
Until I hear more of either this or (much better) of an improvement in the free speech situation of non-muslim bakers, I will wonder whether Amber is honestly correct or merely accidentally correct and actually cowardly.
That said, I broadly agree with the OP.
A very good principle to follow, until it goes wrong! I think that there is a problem within the practice of English Law. Far too many petty laws brought about by NGOs and People with a special case, to say nothing about the “nanny state” in which we seem to find ourselves. Cameron himself was a great activist in these matters, a supposed conservative which is worrying.
It is stated that National Law must prevail……but will it?
Once I might have agreed with the rational position put forward here. But that was then. Now that I know the nature of islam, I cannot support any manifestation of it in a Western society.
There is of course no possibility of a British government “banning” sharia courts. But even if it did, it would have no effect whatsoever. The muslims would continue to hold them, and live by their rulings, and continue to run their society without reference to our society. When you allow a cuckoo into the nest, this is what happens.
Perry in 1937
“I am not an admirer of National Socialism or International Communism but I see no reason why the Third Reich or Comrade Stalin’s USSR should be criticized for the few excesses that have been uncovered recently. We all know that the citizens of these countries have full civil rights and are by and large treated fairly by their governments.”
Oppression by an informal collective is not much better than oppression by the state. As the theory goes people are free to walk away from voluntary arrangements; just as I am in practice free to leave the UK. In reality there are high costs attached to breaking free and it is unreasonable and/or uncaring to suppose that I must bear these costs. My view is that Islam is no better than a third rate cult and the State would be remiss not to save, say, a battered Muslim housewife, who possibly doesn’t speak English well, told to grin and bear it by one of these councils.
So you support the ban?
So you don’t support the ban?
John Galt III: Perry in 2016-> you are in idiot. Seriously, you are. Why am I saying that? Because you appear to think in 1937 the Third Reich or Soviet Union were voluntary arbitrators who could not impose their rulings. And given your form in the past as a fascist apologist, I would expect you to know better. But as you are big on state control of civil society, I can see why you would want civil arbitrators banned (because any law banning a Sharia council would also ban marriage councillors and pretty much any civil arbitration. But you probably see that as a feature, not a bug).
My view is that all religions are third rate cults. But telling people they must use the state rather than their arbitrator of choice will not just effect Muslims, a point that seems lost on many people as they become deranged at the mere mention of the word “Muslims”.
Hence my final paragraph. The solution is knowledge, not yet more intrusions by the state into how people choose to live.
Alisa:
The “ban” will not happen. If it did happen, it would be ignored, and the ban would not be enforced.
My point is that the islam cult has no place in a Western society. Posturing about “banning” sharia courts is a complete waste of time and effort.
What is the behavior that we would like to ban? If I understand correctly, fatwas (religious judgments) that express violence are the problem. I think we can all agree on that, even as some would also want to ban other things associated with Islam.
If I draw a picture of Mohammed and a fatwa is issued that I should be killed, that’s a problem. Can these sharia councils issue these violent fatwas? Yes, they can, but then so can any muslim. Osama bin Laden was not a member of any sharia council or court when he issued his infamous 1996 fatwa against the US.
The existence of a sharia council or court makes no difference to the formal danger of violence coming out of adherents to Islam. As OBL proved, a lack of sharia council/court made him no safer than if he had one.
Focusing on the existence/non existence of the organization is a distraction from the actual problem of sharia, a law code which imposes obligations of violent treatment in certain circumstances.
No enforcement of sharia in its entirety can exist in the UK so long as the UK is a free, secular society. What can be enforced is a different code that resembles sharia but is nonviolent. Is it proper to call such a nonviolent code sharia or is it confusing to the point of being fraudulent? Alternately, the fraud issue can work the other way that the councils do enforce sharia including the violent bits but keep the violence covert, defrauding the government and the general public in their assurance that they do not deal in violence.
Ultimately, the councils founder from a libertarian perspective not because they are muslim, but because they are either frauds pretending to be muslim or frauds pretending to be nonviolent. Either case should draw objections from the liberty viewpoint because of the general objection against fraud.
JohnK:
I agree with your point – but the issue here is not Islam, it is the ban. Whether or not the ban will address the issue of Islam having no place in the West etc. is part of that – but it is not the larger issue. The rot within the Western society has taken root long before Islam became an issue within it, and the tendency to ban things one doesn’t like is a large part of that rot (as well as of Islam, come to that). And that rot was what made the West vulnerable to Islam in the first place.
Alisa:
I take your point. I don’t like government “banning” things as a rule. With regard to islam, it is a violent cult which is not compatible with Western society. The entire cult should be “banned” (though it won’t be). Messing about at the edges with talk of “banning” sharia courts is a waste of time. It won’t happen, and if it did, the muslims would simply ignore the ban.
Again, John, this is not about Islam (not everything always is, even when it has part in the context). It is about banning things. So no, unfortunately you didn’t quite get my point.
Alisa:
All I’ll say is that as a rule, I am against the state “banning” things. But I am also against allowing rabid dogs into school playgrounds. There are some things which are just not safe to allow to happen.
If we agree that a state exists to protect its citizens, then it follows that the state should not allow the mass immigration of people who hold to a cult which will result in the destruction of the host society. Any state which allows this to happen has already failed it its primary purpose as a state, and simply insults our intelligence if it postures about “banning” sharia courts (which as I have pointed out, it won’t anyway).
That’s my position.
I would have to disagree. If a council says they are muslim, and two muslim people agree to use it, who are you or I to say it is ‘fraudulently’ claiming to be muslim? If the punters are happy with the product they are purchasing, it should not be up to some third party to save them from what they want. One could take the view that all religion is fraudulent, but so what? I am an atheist, but if all parties want to invoke a God I do not believe in when they arbitrate a dispute, in accordance with some dark ages death cult’s structures, that is a matter for them alone, as long as they do not stray outside secular law (and that is not a minor point).
I defy you to draft a law that is actually enforceable & achieves anything meaningful at all, that does not also effectively end civil arbitration for everyone. I for one would rather not see state power expanded in such a manner.
I take a middle view. (Well, actually, I suppose it is an extremist view, but on both ends!)
I agree with Perry that, if you’re going to have Muslims in your country, they (and any other group) should certainly have the use of non-judicial arbitration/mediation mechanisms (provided, or course, that such panels are truly voluntary [see Alisa’s comment] and they truly operate within the bounds of secular law [see Rob’s]).
But that said, I agree with JohnK that “the Islam cult has no place in a Western society.” I would ban it outright (not merely its councils). I am well aware that this constitutes libertarian heresy, but there it is. And Alisa, much as you would like to keep this thread focused solely on Sharia councils, the fact is that you can’t separate a discussion of Islam from that any more than you could separate the discussion of automobiles from a thread about carburetors.
But I wouldn’t – I was simply objecting to JohnK’s insistence that ‘Posturing about “banning” sharia courts is a complete waste of time and effort’ – because to me it is not, in fact quite the opposite.
And, I couldn’t care less about Sharia councils specifically anyway. Either ban Islam outright (as you suggest), or get over it.
Alisa:
It is posturing. There is no possibility whatsoever that the British government would ever ban sharia courts, so discussing the proposition as if it might happen is a waste of time.
Then any discussion on any topic we are having here is posturing, because what are the chances of the British or any other government changing any of their policies for the better, absent total collapse of the whole damned house of cards? Plus, if you think the discussion is not worth having, why are you wasting your time telling others not to “waste” theirs?
Alisa:
I would not say we are posturing in discussing this as an intellectual exercise, but the fact is that no British government will ever have the moral courage to prohibit sharia law in the UK.
And as a free man, I demand the right to waste my time as I feel fit. How you choose to waste your time is entirely a matter for you.
This is not a mere intellectual exercise to me.
My point exactly.
Besides, there are ways around many things. A national Australian paper pointed out that some Muslim men go overseas (to sharia-compliant countries) to marry child brides, and return with them to Australia. Under-age brides are appalling, so how could we stop the practice? Since Mohammed (perdition be upon him) had a child bride, how is the system to ever be stopped?
C’mon Perry. I agree in principle as to arbitration by whatever mutually agreed system between those genuinely free. Do you honestly think in practice this would happen? Seriously?
Perry de Havilland (London) – I present The No Violence in Alternative Courts/Arbitration Panels act. The act would require that any non-state alternative courts/arbitration panel that enforces or purports to enforce a code of law or conduct that includes violent resolutions shall swear, under penalty of perjury, and, if naturalized or foreign, loss of right to stay in the country, that no judgments shall be issued or enforced under that code shall be violent. Operating clandestine, parallel organizations, shall forswear and penalize both.
When you have a UK court of law, this is a normalizing institution. It establishes rules as to what is permissible and impermissible. The same is true of a sharia court. There is a significant difference between a sharia court and Bob’s A-1 arbitration service and there’s no use pretending otherwise.
People have touched upon the issue of voluntariness, but rather theoretically.
This would work only if we excepted out those who are likely not truly voluntarily choosing to forgo western protections.
To take two quick examples, look at domestic abuse, and look at juvenile court.
In most western societies, we’ve taken on a paternal legal view of people who get beat up by their partners. Recognizing that fear (of pain, of financial ruin, of homelessness) often works to stop a victim from pursuing legal options, our systems now sport many mandatory protections for those victims that allow them to seek legal-system help while minimizing those fears. We go so far as to encourage the prosecution of such cases even when a victim chooses not to take part. We offer court orders excluding a violent actor from a home. We direct that earnings be split among the parties while the process grinds on. In short, knowing that (usually) women who are getting beat up are oftimes loath to testify to that fact, we direct our courts to proactively impose those protections.
Allowing a beaten partner to “opt out” of protections that we can give even without a victim’s desire obviates all such protections. If a bashed Muslim woman can choose to opt out and thus receive none of these protections, her society is going to insist that she does so. Do we want Muslims to be able to decide that, amongst themselves, domestic abuse is allowable? Because they will, just as we learned in the past that bashed women in general too often (for those fear reasons) will opt out.
In juvenile court, the kids come in as parties, and their parents are merely other parties in the process. Often, juvenile court seeks to impose unwanted conditions on all parties – kids and parents. We seek to impose on parents, through these courts, a socially-agreed-upon standard of care that they must meet in order to keep their kids. We impose on kids basic societal mores.
If by agreement parents and kids could opt out of juvenile court and take their problems to sharia council, we’re no longer holding to a unified standard of care that all parents must meet. We make parents meet this standard, in our juvenile courts, even when the parents do not care to meet this standard. We do this because all of society suffers when kids are raised horribly.
If juvenile proceedings and domestic abuse proceedings could be pulled from the system and transferred to sharia council, we would be allowing a standard of behavior that we recognize as morally wrong, at the behest of the morally wrong. Unless we’re giving everything up to subjective standards, that’s no way to foster freedom.
Bobby, those are exactly the issues that are at stake in this context, and I have been pondering the exact same questions you touched upon here, long and hard – only I came to a conclusion opposite to yours. From here, we could possibly argue about it until the end of time, but I suspect neither of us would change the other’s mind. These things tend to be personally fundamental, for lack of a better term.
bobby,
I was not being theoretical. In theory… Yup, fine solve disputes however thou shalt but if anyone seriously believes a sharia court isn’t intrinsically sexist (for example – and the issues here are primarily family law stuff) then OK, fine, I like to believe the best in people but the sharia is intrinsically sexist.
Quran (2:282) – “And call to witness, from among your men, two witnesses. And if two men be not found then a man and two women.”
And that doesn’t even include the enormous pressure to conform in our Islamic “Metrocosms” (Midwesterner) which ranges from social exclusion to having members of your mosque throw acid in your face. The later is obviously horribly evil but the former is terrible because of how contolling these societies can be.
That is what happens when multicultarlism replaced the melting pot that served so well for so many years.
Which is great, because it does not actually ban Sharia councils.
I really don’t care whether it is sexist, or racist, or antisemitic – as long as I’m not forced to join it. And if the existing laws against kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and bodily harm are enforced, then I cannot be so forced. It is as simple as that.
(Children are a more difficult case, but it is also a wider issue not specific to this one).
Perry de Havilland (London), November 2, 2016 at 10:28 am: ” … ‘… The No Violence in Alternative Courts/Arbitration Panels act’ … Which is great, because it does not actually ban Sharia councils.”
But also not so great because, in the current state of our society, the will to enforce it will be sorely lacking.
Of course, this also applies to the will to enforce any ban on sharia courts. Any such law wouldl be written generally because “it would be racist and islamophobic to target just sharia”. Like the hate speech laws, it would then be used harshly against those who dissent from the vision of the anointed, but rarely and gently against those who were the excuse for its creation.
No wonder the left love muslim immigration. It’s the gift that keeps on giving (the left excuses to take away our freedom).
High-trust societies can defend justice and freedom simultaneously. Low-trust societies are lucky if they get to choose the lesser evil. Welcome to the world of PC.
Which is enthusiastically supported by far too many on the Right.
That is one of the Left’s main tools: the sowing of distrust within society (AKA Divide and Conquer).
Perry de Havilland (London) – You can certainly think it doesn’t ban them, but it does for all practical purposes and practical is good enough for me. So since the ultimate effect on the councils is theoretical (the act not having been passed at present), let’s both support the initiative and see who’s right down the line.
NIall Kilmartin – The distinctive feature of that makes sharia councils objectionable is the risk that they will dip their toes into violent resolutions. If they are not distinctive, could you possibly inform as to who else is doing violent alternative dispute resolution in your neck of the woods?
“The distinctive feature of that makes sharia councils objectionable is the risk that they will dip their toes into violent resolutions.”
Back when I was a new lawyer I opened my own office, which means that for a while you take on ANY case with a possible source of payment just to keep the lights on. Part of that means you sign up to handle court-appointed cases (with clients who couldn’t afford a normal fee – the court system would pay part.)
I lived in a large metropolitan area with a Native American reservation nearby. Periodically, I’d take an appointment case involving a divorce, with related assault charges, involving a NA couple. They could, if they both so opted, move the case to the reservation court for “culturally appropriate” justice.
In two of those cases, (both of which involved a man beating up my client, his wife), the assault charges were somehow dropped. In both of those cases, the wife’s male relatives beat the carp out of the guy very shortly thereafter. It was an arranged thing.
In the third case I remember, the woman was from another reservation out of state, and she had no male relatives nearby. The assault case was prosecuted, and the man was ordered to pay money to the council. (I believe it just went into the council members’ pockets.)
I always wondered how those outcomes were “culturally appropriate”.
I also took part in several juvenile cases in which an offending kid was obviously living in very bad circumstances. (No food in the house, no heat, dad is constantly passed-out-drunk, mom’s at the bar.) Those could be taken to the NA court on the parents’ discretion. Once that happened, chances of improving the kid’s situation were nil – the council might lecture the kid on proper respect for elders, sentence him to cut brush for a day, and maybe give him a strapping, and . . . that was it.
I had one client – a beat-up woman – who was NA, but who wanted to refuse to transfer to the reservation court. She knew it held no help for her. Over a week or so, her car was burned up, her apartment trashed, and everyone she knew backed away from her. So, she transferred, her hubby paid the council a hundred bucks for having beat her up, and they were divorced with all property going to hubby because “he earned the wages to buy the stuff.”
So, yeah, I’m a big fan of culturally appropriate justice.
Using the brute power of the state to ban a category of voluntary behavior is a very ugly thing.
However, not all voluntary behavior is actually voluntary; it may be compelled by intimidation. And intimidation can be subtle and distributed. That is, it consists of numerous small acts by many different actors, none of which could be usefully prosecuted, which collectively amount to ruin and torture of the target.
The demanded behavior may include submission to an extralegal authority – such as a sharia court. Or demonstrating submission to the dominating faction by wearing required clothing – such as a hijab.
In such cases there is usually a Mr. Inside and a Mr. Outside. Mr. Inside is respectable and polite and never threatens violence. He just calmly preaches or administers the doctrines enforced by Mr. Outside – who is anonymous and disposable.
If Mr. Inside is untouchable, his faction wins.
TMLutas (November 2, 2016 at 4:22 pm): “… could you possibly inform as to who else is doing violent alternative dispute resolution in your neck of the woods?”
No-one else (that I particularly know of) is actually doing it. My point was that politically correct judges will not let facts get in the way of punishing legitimate behaviour by un-PC groups. The hate speech laws were brought in on the back of acts of terrorist violence by a specific group with rhetoric to match, but are in fact used sparingly against that group but aggressively against groups the PC dislike. I was merely warning that the same might be true of your well-intentioned legal proposal.
(I note that from the very start, punishing “backlash” was prominent in Labour’s enthusiasm for the hate speech law, but that might be the same in this case by the time it was in parliament being debated.)
Niall Kilmartin – If we are to give up legislating against violence as lovers of freedom because the unjust might be unjust with the tools we create to fight illegitimate violence, we might as well pack up shop and sign up for our least objectionable primary loyalty tribe. The fix for unjust judges is their removal, period.