[ridenrain]

We already have a precedence for Native Indian Justice.
How is this different?

[HaRdLy]

ridenrain wrote:

We already have a precedence for Native Indian Justice.
How is this different?

Its not based on RELIGION.

[HaRdLy]

As far as i'm concerned, if they want their own laws/courts, they should move back to their own country.

[BartSimpson]

HaRdLy wrote:

As far as i'm concerned, if they want their own laws/courts, they should move back to their own country.

[Streaker]

Quote:

As far as i'm concerned, if they want their own laws/courts, they should move back to their own country.

I don't think they really want their own "laws/courts". What they want is the ability to take advantage of provisions in Ontario's Arbitration Act which already allow Christians and Jews to settle disagreements through arbitration rather than litigation.

Regarding Sharia, I think there are human rights-related concerns which need to be addressed, but otherwise I'm beginning to think that this may be okay.

I've continued googling and found this interesting article:

Quote:

Islamophobia,
Shari'a law and the Ontario Arbitration Act
By PATRICK HOUSSAIS

Already prior to 9/11, islamophobia was never far from the front pages of the mainstream press, if not in the headlines. Since then, things have gone from bad to worse, with news coverage about Islam rife with exaggerations and inaccuracies. This summer’s controversy over the use of Shari’a law under Ontario’s Arbitration Act was no exception.


Ontario has for some time now allowed various religious groups to use religious law to arbitrate disputes ranging from divorce and other family matters to minor business dealings. Segments of the Catholic, Jewish and Ismaili communities have all availed themselves of this opportunity, and without so much as a murmur from the press. But recent moves by the Ontario Government to allow the heretofore little known Islamic Institute of Civil Justice to apply Shari’a, Islam’s religious law, under the Arbitration Act garnered headlines in the local, national and even international press. “Islamic courts get foothold in Canada” screamed the April 28 headline of the Washington Post. Islamophobia had struck again.


To be sure, opponents of the project raised important objections. A number of Muslim women’s groups voiced strong opposition on the grounds that Shari’a law was inherently biased against women and that some Muslim women, not least recently arrived immigrants who do not speak English or French, might be coerced by their husbands into getting their disputes resolved before a Shari’a tribunal that would always favour the man. These were certainly valid concerns. But press coverage went much further. Discussion of the concerns raised by women’s groups seemed almost incidental to a discussion of Shari’a’s responsibility for the deaths of thousands of women worldwide every year, of an unknown number of men and women found “guilty” of homosexuality and related crimes, and that punishments could include the amputation of a hand or limb. With each new article and hostile editorial, the hysteria seemed to get worse and worse. A reality check was certainly in order and a few did appear, but to no avail. The debate continued to smack of ignorance and even prejudice.


As a few writers attempted to point out, it is not so much Shari’a law that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of women and other atrocities, as its interpretation and application by the ruling elites in certain parts of the world. Shari’a is not a fixed body of laws. It derives in part from the Koran and in part from other religious scriptures and has interpretations and applications too numerous to count. As the Institute for Civil Justice pointed out again and again, but apparently in vain, the version of Shari’a law applied by its arbitrators would comply with Canadian law, and, where a conflict arises, Canadian law would take precedence. Moreover, to assuage fears of women being coerced into resolving their disputes before a Shari’a tribunal, the Institute promised that the process would be open and transparent, and that observers were more than welcome.


But debate in the press continued along the same unfortunate track, providing very little actual discussion of the Institute’s proposals. Moreover, no one seemed to be asking the most obvious question of all: how do women fare under Catholic and Orthodox Jewish law as applied under the Arbitration Act? Coverage was rife with the culturally biased assumption that women would naturally fare much better under these forms of religious law than under Shari’a. After all, religious Catholics and Jews don’t amputate limbs.


Also lost in the hysteria was the question of how gay and lesbian issues would be treated before a religious tribunal. Could a religious tribunal of any kind be trusted to deal properly with these issues?


Fortunately, just as the debate was heading steadfastly downhill, the McGuinty Government made a move, and got it right! Refusing to give in to the hysteria, the Government appointed former Cabinet Minister Marian Boyd to review the use of all forms of religious law under the Arbitration Act. That effectively ended the controversy. Hopefully, Boyd’s report, due at the end of September, will re-focus the debate on the real issue: should religious law be used at all under the Arbitration Act given the not so subtle bias of some bodies of religious law against certain vulnerable groups, particularly women and gays and lesbians? And if so, how?

UofT Link.

[Streaker]

Thanks to canadiansailor for posting this article on the homepage:

Quote:

Sharia law debate badly skewed

By BRUCE CHEADLE




OTTAWA (CP) - Marion Boyd has been both ridiculed and applauded as the supposed architect of Ontario opening its family law system to Muslim Sharia dispute resolution. But the exasperated former Ontario attorney general says both extremes are wildly misrepresenting what she recommended the province do as it considers reforms to its civil arbitration act.

Rather than opening a door, Boyd's provincially commissioned report last December recommended placing limits and oversight mechanisms on an arbitration system currently open to abuse.

Under Ontario's 1991 arbitration act, civil disputes ranging from child custody and support to divorce and inheritance can be resolved through an independent arbitrator if both parties agree. Catholics, Mennonites, Jews, aboriginals, Jehovahs Witnesses and Muslims, among others, have availed themselves of this right to settle family law questions without resorting to the courts.

The arbitration concept dates back as far as the 1870s in Ontario.

But in the past couple of years a very public tussle over the use of Sharia religious arbitration raised fundamental questions about whether the current system should continue.

"Right now the law allows (Muslims) to do this. It has forever," said Boyd.

"The new step - the recommendations - are to say, 'You can only do this if you actually follow Ontario family law."'

That's not the way Boyd's report has been characterized.

Opponents of permitting Sharia family arbitration, including vocal Muslim women's groups, argue the reforms will give legitimacy and an unenforceable patina of oversight to Sharia, a legal code they say is profoundly inequitable to women.

It's been widely reported that Ontario is moving to "allow" or "adopt" Sharia family courts.

Some of the most hardline advocates happily assert that Boyd's recommendations are the first step in establishing full Sharia criminal law for Muslims in Canada.

Such "political identity ambitions" - Boyd's phrase - further fan the fears of opponents, who raise the spectre of Sharia's worst excesses: stonings, amputations, rape.

"We can't just simply dismiss these concerns as paranoid fantasies because people who have lived under a full Sharia law regime have good reason to be fearful," said Boyd.

"The fears are significant enough that, if the government is going to continue to allow arbitration in family matters, then it needs to take into account the concerns about the vulnerable and put some limitations on it."

So the debate really should be about whether to prohibit all religious arbitration - at great expense to the public purse, as well as lengthening already long backlogs in family civil courts - or whether to attempt to get a better handle on arbitration rulings.

The latter is the essence of Boyd's report.

Wahida Valiante, national vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, welcomes the reforms.

"The bottom line is, someone cannot arbitrate based on something they think Sharia is telling them," she said in an interview. "It has to conform to the laws of the land."

But opponents accuse Boyd of being hopelessly naive.

Homa Arjomand has launched an international campaign against the Ontario reform proposals, which are attracting significant attention in Europe.

She said the most vocal proponent - the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice and its leader Syed Mumtaz Ali - is not interested only in faith, but in politics. The institute continually calls the arbitration system a "Muslim court."

"They want to be part of the state, part of the justice system," said Arjomand, an Iranian immigrant. "That's the main characteristic of political Islam."

The Ontario government, and Boyd, are making the mistake of dividing political Islam into fundamentalist and non-fundamentalist camps.

"They think only fundamentalism is dangerous, because they carry bombs," she said.

But how can immigrant Muslim women, raised from birth without any sense of their rights, possibly get Canadian justice if self-described Sharia "courts" get any kind of legitimate foothold? How can such tribunals be properly monitored?

"And this is just the first step," warns Arjomand.

Boyd concedes the reporting system won't be rigorous enough to review every single arbitration decision for Charter rights violations or family law breaches.

But the paper trail will ensure that "over time we can see if there is an erosion of equity rights."

And regardless of the public cost, judicial strain and multi-faith outcry that would follow an outright ban

on religious arbitration, Boyd doesn't think that would stop Sharia resolutions anyway.

"I'm quite convinced it will go underground if it's not allowed."

Link

[Motorcycleboy]

I really enjoy following this debate because it pits two groups of activists who I detest against one another. It's like watching two guys you hate get into a fight.

This battle puts hardcore multiculturalists against hardcore feminists. These are two groups who are traditionally allies in the battle against western civilization, so it's refreshing to see them at logger-heads.

The feminists, quite rightly, point out that Islamic law is inherently sexist and that Muslim women will likely be coerced into accepting arbitration rather than going through the traditional courts for redress.

The multiculturalists on the other hand, seem to think that our society and it's institutions simply are the problem rather than the solution and have to be socially re-engineered to adapt to the needs of everybody who comes here from everywhere else in the world.

The precedent for this harkens back to the bad old days of Ontario under the NDP government. They brought the idea of quasi-judicial tribunals along cultural-religious lines in during their fumbling kick at power back in the early 90's. Marion Boyd, the person appointed to look into Sharia law now, isn't really an objective observer. She was a Cabinet minister under that Government, and had some input into the idea then.

If I had to choose between the sides, I come down on the side of the Feminists.

Canadian law is based on the British Common Law system of Jurisprudence and Constitutional Monarchy. Although far from perfect, this has proven to be the most effective system of laws the world's ever seen. Everywhere you look, nations that subscribe to this system have fared far better than those who don't. Not only Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand etc, but even those third world former colony's that were British administered, have done better than their counterparts. Jamaica vs Haiti, South Africa vs the Congo, Egypt vs Algeria. British Justice works. And it's a big reason why millions of people from all over the world want to move to this country.

I don't mind multiculturalism when means Canadians get to enjoy a better variety of restaurants. But I don't think we here in Canada have much to learn from Islam or any other third world civilization when it comes to our system of justice or public administration.

[Thematic-Device]

last I checked canada was still a secular country.

Its a pretty slippery slope (well actually you'd already be down it with this one) and logically if you introduce sharia law you should allow christians and jews to enforce old testament laws and to begin pulling out the rocks to huck at each other, because no matter how you break it down they are both breaking the others sabbath. (ahh the problems of having sabaths on different days)

Nothing is preventing this man from living his own life in accordance to sharia law, he is only restricted when his actions infringe upon the lives of others, as it should be.