An interesting piece in today's NY Times.
_http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/world/europe/19shariah.html_
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/world/europe/19shariah.html) ?
Bobby
Robert Justin Lipkin
Distinguished Professor of Law
Widener University School of Law
Delaware
Ratio Juris
,
Can religious secular courts exist in the same nation? Excellent question the
answer to which is:
Matthew 6:24
24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love
the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot
serve God and mammon.
We've discussed this a bit on the list before, but I don't see why in
principle religious courts should not be treated pretty much as commercial
arbitration is: as a consensual alternative to the state legal system (with
enforcement permissible through the national courts where required). In all
some things are out of bounds -- divorce for example -- but it seems short
of that, most things could be handled as analogous to arbitration,
mediation, or negotiated settlement, i.e., contractual.
--
Prof. Steven Jamar
Howard University School of Law
Associate Director, Institute of
With respect to the discriminatory sex based issue raised by Eugene, I am
curious as to how we can judge discrimination as applied to Shari'a. For
example, everyone complains about the Islamic standard that women receive one
half of what their male siblings receive under inheritance. What is
This argument that voluntary submission to religious courts is like voluntary
submission to arbitration has a lot of force. And it can be carried a step
further: arguably it discrimiantes against religion if agreements to secular
arbitration are enforceable and agreements to religious
The issue of Shar'ia courts in the United Kingdom is, of course, primarily a
political question. The 'headlines' are no more than the common use of
arbitration (Arbitration Act 1996) for dispute resolution. In the United
Kingdom, as noted, there is only so far that one can go to 'surrender'
The European Court, in claiming incompatibility with the rule of law (an
extraordinarily amorphous term), is, of course, ignoring the example of Israel,
India and Indonesia who all allow the coexistence of multiple jurisdictions.
Are they all examples of rule of law-less domains?
Doug's comments are helpful and thoughtful, as always. Two brief
follow-ups:
(1) Secular arbitration is allowed to enforce the law of another
land, for instance if the arbitration agreement provides for arbitration
under the law of some foreign country. It's hard to see why an
Maybe this is so, but I'm not quite sure. Consider the following:
Say that an actor agrees to star in a movie two years hence. He then
undergoes a religious conversion, and concludes that participating in
the movie would be against God's will, perhaps because the movie
involves too much sex,
10 matches
Mail list logo
