Non-Muslims turning to Sharia courts to resolve civil disputes
Increasing numbers of non-Muslims are turning to Sharia courts to resolve
commercial disputes and other civil matters, The Times has learnt.
The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT) said that 5 per cent of its cases
involved non-Muslims who were using the courts because they were less
cumbersome and more informal than the English legal system.
Freed Chedie, a spokesman for Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siqqiqi, a barrister who set
up the tribunal, said: “We put weight on oral agreements, whereas the British
courts do not.”
In a case last month a non-Muslim Briton took his Muslim business partner to
the tribunal to sort out a dispute over the profits in their car fleet company.
“The non-Muslim claimed that there had been an oral agreement between the
pair,” said Mr Chedie. “The tribunal found that because of certain things the
Muslim man did, that agreement had existed. The non-Muslim was awarded £48,000.”
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He said that the tribunal had adjudicated on at least 20 cases involving
non-Muslims so far this year. The rulings of the tribunal are legally binding,
provided that both parties agree to that condition at the beginning of any
hearing.
Anti-Sharia campaigners, who claim that the Islamic system is radical and
biased against women, expressed alarm at the news. Denis MacEoin, who wrote a
recent report for the think-tank Civitas examining the spread of Sharia in
Britain, said that MAT’s claims about non-Muslim clients “raises all sorts of
questions”.
He added: “You really need to ask why. What advantages could that possibly have
for them going to an Islamic court? Any [Sharia] court is going to be
implementing aspects of a law that runs contrary to British law, because of the
way it treats women for example.”
Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that
organisations should be free to conduct arbitration under Sharia, provided that
it did not infringe British law and was a voluntary process.
Baroness Warsi, the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action,
who is Muslim, said that there were many forums for arbitration and alternative
dispute resolution in Britain. “There is no problem with that, as long as it is
always subject to English law,” she said.
The Times has also learnt that the MAT is planning to triple the number of its
courts by setting up in ten new British cities by the end of the year. It will
expand its network further by acting as an advisory body to dozens of other
Islamic courts, with the intention of achieving national consensus over rulings
and procedures.
Although Sharia courts have been operating in the civil jurisdiction since the
early 1980s, they have been doing so only in the shadows and in an ad-hoc
fashion. The Civitas report estimated that there were 85 Sharia councils in
Britain.
As such, if the MAT was successful in bringing a number of the existing
councils into line with its own courts, it would in effect create Britain’s
largest national co-operative of tribunals.
Mr Chedie said that the plan would legitimise Sharia because all the courts
under its umbrella would be “consistent in their rulings”. The MAT, which has
legal legitimacy under the Arbitration Act 1996, already operates in London,
Birmingham, Bradford, Manchester and Nuneaton, Warwickshire. At its annual
conference in October it will decide its ten new locations, which are likely to
include Leeds, Luton, Blackburn, Stoke and Glasgow.
The tribunal is inviting 24 Sharia councils to attend the conference so that it
can train them on procedures and rulings in an attempt to achieve national
consistency. Most Sharia courts deal only with divorce and family disputes but
the MAT also rules on commercial matters and mediates over forced marriages and
domestic violence.
Mr Chedie said: “We would train most of the imams so that a lady in Glasgow
would receive the same form of service as a lady in London. Sharia councils are
already falling into line under us. There is hysterial and inherent prejudice
against Sharia, but the overwhelming opinion of the judiciary is that English
law and Sharia are compatible. It is only people at the right end of the
political spectrum who are scaremongering.” Mr Chedie argued that the
legitimacy of the MAT was further enhanced because non-Muslims had started to
use it for arbitration.
Mr MacEoin said he was sceptical that the MAT could achieve unity because there
were several different schools of thought when it came to Islamic law. He added
that the Muslim community was already deeply divided over ideology.
Source: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6721158.ece
