The fall of Britain

[mekender]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 749183.ece

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

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.

Siddiqi said: “We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.”

The disclosure that Muslim courts have legal powers in Britain comes seven months after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was pilloried for suggesting that the establishment of sharia in the future “seems unavoidable” in Britain.

In July, the head of the judiciary, the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, further stoked controversy when he said that sharia could be used to settle marital and financial disputes.

In fact, Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.

It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations.

Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of “smaller” criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. “All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases,” said Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.

Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolve civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.”

Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: “I think it’s appalling. I don’t think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state.”

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.

In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.

Siddiqi said that in the domestic violence cases, the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones.”

So, Britain has officially been subjugated at least in part by Islam. I would dare say that they can no longer be counted as an ally to the US.

[Windy Wilson]

Wasn't it the friction between two systems of law (or three) that was the impetus for the French Revolution? I mean there was one set for the peasants, one for the nobility and another for the church? The strength of the British Common Law system was that it was common to all peoples, and it did not make distinctions based on religion or on bank account.
How the mighty have fallen!

[clyde621]

When the goverment trys to please all of the people then none will be pleased.
The Brits have truely fallen.

[308Mike]

Churchill has got to be spinning in his grave - I'm surprised he hasn't gone nuclear yet. I guess his rotational speed hasn't quite reached it - YET.

[Wrenchbender1]

Zombie Churchill for Prime Minister!

[Frankingun]

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: “If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so.”

Wth is a "shadow home secretary?" And does this quote mean that this abomination is not yet law?

[Erik]

The "shadow cabinet" is the oppositions version of the real cabinet. (ie administration) It would be as if the Democrats set up their own shadow image of the administration, and the "shadow home secretary" would then be the person they selected as a spokesperson on issues concerning internal US issues.

As I understand it, Sharia isn't official UK law (yet). Instead, the UK courts leave it up to the Sharia courts to make their own rulings, and then enforce them. The UK courts doesnt actually enforce the sharia rulings. Yet.

In reality I think it's pretty much academic though. It's not as if the victim of a domestic dispute is going to force the issue and try to bring the case to a real court, when they allready left it up to the sharia court in the first place.

[Aglifter]

Er... I have a few concerns -- A) is a woman entering these courts of her own accord? B) Aside from that, arbitration is pretty much arbitration -- provided courts can't order cases to be arbitrated by the Sharia meetings, there's really nothing to prevent it in the US system -- I've forgotten what standards there are for arbitration, but they're pretty low.

[Erik]

Well, of course if you ask them it's "voluntary".
Problem is that the Sharia courts demand that they should do *all* arbitration in certain cases. This makes it more or less futile for a woman to bring up an issue against her husband in a UK court, they will simply defer it for "arbitration". Unless the woman really want to push it and go to the police. But which woman in a islamic community with active sharia courts will bring her case out of that community and to a UK court? When she hears from everyone in her community that the UK courts have given total jurisdiction to the sharia courts?

I honestly don't have any problem with arbitration, nor with counseling, but when the court system willingly let other systems have a de facto jurisdiction over certain communities, they have effectively created a separate court system. This court system will then expand their jurisdiction to cover more and more areas.

[The Quiet Man]

So, does that mean that killing you wife/sister/daughter (take your pick) is now legal in (the once) Great Britain? Or is it only legal IF you pray on a rug with your head pointing towards Mecca? Inquiring minds want to know.....