| | Conservative MP and member of the party’s Human Rights Commission, Mark Pritchard (pictured), contributes a blog article to his local paper, the Shropshire Star, in which he claims shari’ah councils in the UK are socially divisive, dispense unfair justice by discriminating against women, and are undermining English law by establishing a parallel legal system.
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He writes:
‘…in recent years, these tribunals have developed into fully fledged Sharia Councils – allowed to settle new disputes, such as divorce, family law, and faith issues. These powers go well beyond the letter and spirit of the original legislation and whilst they provide new ways of dispensing cheap justice they do not always dispense fair justice.
‘By expanding the powers of Sharia Councils, ministers have set the scene for a breaking narrative which is fractious, discriminates against women, and, incrementally, is establishing a parallel legal system.
‘The replacement of legal precedence and common law with Islamic codification is also a gift to some extremist parties who have seized on the increasing numbers of Sharia Councils as more evidence of the demotion of hard fought for British cultural freedoms and laws. And despite the protestations of senior government ministers over recent BNP advances, ministerial alarm calls will ring deep and hollow as long the same ministers continue to advocate two Britains.
‘The views of the BNP are repugnant, but it should not take BNP electoral gains for ministers to wake up to the fact that social cohesion cannot be predicated on the reality, or the perception, of one rule for one community and a different set of rules for everyone else. Allowing different groups to apply different standards at variants with existing common and statute law is a recipe for resentment and suspicion. This legal dualism also strikes at the very heart the great British virtue of fair play – and all British subjects being united – under one nation.
‘And as ministers sleepwalk into further fragmenting communities, they still decline to answer the fundamental question: do Muslim women enjoy the same rights under Sharia jurisprudence as under English law? Ministers should not be allowed to obviate when challenged about Islamic teaching on the role, rights, and responsibilities, of women in society. Ministers may choose to evade this issue, but Sharia principles and practices are unlikely to progress the much needed emancipation of Britain’s Muslim women. ‘Sharia Councils shine an embarrassing light on how ministers have increasingly relegated and downgraded thousands of Muslim women to de facto second class British citizens, perversely, in the name of tolerance and understanding.’ Research into the treatment of women seeking arbitration at Shari’ah councils, to ascertain the veracity of claims of unfair treatment, is indeed necessary and laudable. But the red herring bandied about by critics of the Arbitration Act’s extension to the presence and workings of Shari’ah councils, that they introduce a parallel legal system, or that their very existence threatens social cohesion, is a bit rich when you consider the existence of far longer established Beth Din courts which service the British Jewish community. Are these too guilty of establishing parallel legal systems and undermining social cohesion?
Despite the Justice Secretary’s repeated assurances and the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips’ remarks:
‘Those who, in this country, are in dispute as to their respective rights are free to subject that dispute to the mediation of a chosen person, or to agree that the dispute shall be resolved by a chosen arbitrator or arbitrators. There is no reason why principles of sharia law, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution. It must be recognised, however, that any sanctions for a failure to comply with the agreed terms of the mediation would be drawn from the laws of England and Wales,’
bias against Shari’ah councils persists. In raising the ugly spectre of the BNP’s canvassing on the perception of ‘one rule for one community and a different set of rules for everyone else’, Pritchard makes it seem as though Muslims alone enjoyed the option of alternative dispute resolution that Shari’ah councils provide.
But given that Pritchard argues that Shari’ah councils were introduced to mediate financial disputes, later moving on to handle cases of family law and faith, when in fact the councils deal largely with cases of family law and matrimonial issues, his ignorance of what Shari’ah councils do, who uses them and why, is not all that surprising.
While Mark Pritchard MP carefully constructs his argument against Shari’ah councils with a defence of British Muslim women’s rights, one might well ask whether Pritchard has ever visited a Shari’ah council to observe first hand cases involving British Muslim women to see whether the charge of gender discrimination fits? Pritchard would no doubt be surprised to learn that Shari’ah councils have actually assisted British Muslim women in securing divorces, for example.
One might also ask how, as a member of the Conservative Party’s Human Rights Commission, he would propose to honour the human rights of those British Muslim women who, in exercising their rights under the Arbitration Act, opt for arbitration and dispute resolution via Shari’ah councils? Or are these not the Muslim women Pritchard is concerned about?
Moreover, his concern for ‘Sharia Councils’ …. relegat[ing] and downgrad[ing] thousands of Muslim women to de facto second class British citizens’ will seem laughable to Muslim women who have recently borne the brunt of remarks by fellow Tory MP, Philip Hollobone.
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