re: #397 Nimed

Interesting bit from the archbishop of Canterbury on the issue, a good read.

Williams was the subject of a media and press furore in February 2008, following a lecture he gave to the Temple foundation at the Royal Courts of Justice on the subject of ‘Islam and English Law’. He raised the question of conflicting loyalties which communities might have, cultural, religious and civic and argued that theology has a place in debates about the very nature of law ‘however hard our culture may try to keep it out’ and noted that there is in a ‘dominant human rights philosophy’ a reluctance to acknowledge the liberty of conscientious objection. He spoke of ‘supplementary jurisdictions’ to that of the civil law. Noting the anxieties which the word Sharia provoked in the West he drew attention to the fact that there was a debate within Islam between what he called “primitivists” for whom, for instance, apostasy should still be punishable and those Muslims who argued that Sharia was a developing system of Islamic jurisprudence that such a view was no longer acceptable. He made comparisons with “Orthodox Jewish practice” (Beth Din) and with the recognition of the exercise of conscience of Christians.

His words were critically interpreted as proposing a parallel jurisdiction to the civil law for Muslims (Sharia), and was the subject of demands from elements of the press and media for his resignation. He also attracted criticism from elements of the Anglican Communion.

In response, Williams stated in a BBC interview “… certain provision[s] of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law; … we already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justified conscientious objections in certain circumstances in providing certain kinds of social relations” and that “we have Orthodox Jewish courts operating in this country legally and in a regulated way because there are modes of dispute resolution and customary provisions which apply there in the light of Talmud.” Williams also denied accusations of proposing a parallel Islamic legal system within Britain. Williams also acknowledged that Sharia, “In some of the ways it has been codified and practised across the world, it has been appalling and applied to women in places like Saudi Arabia, it is grim.”

On 4 July 2008 Sharia again became a topic of media interest, following comments by Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. He supported the idea that Sharia could be reasonably employed as a basis for “mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution”. He went further to defend Williams’s position from earlier in the year, explaining “It was not very radical to advocate embracing sharia law in the context of family disputes, for example, and our system already goes a long way towards accommodating the archbishop’s suggestion.” and “It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.”]