By Warner Todd Huston (02/03/07)
England is fast becoming but simple a plot of land floating in the sea instead of a nation of culture guided by a rich legal tradition. It is a tail of warning for the USA, the moral of which is don't allow minorities to set up a parallel culture or you will cease to be a nation of laws. You will, in fact, cease to be a nation at all.
England is on the verge of having a bifurcated legal system, one for their various religious peoples and one for the rest of the native population. Two recent stories show the degradation of the British legal system and the inequities that it creates.
In a BBC story by Innes Bowen, The end of one law for all?, the question is asked: "Ethnic and religious courts are gaining ground in the UK. Will this lead to different justice for different people?"
How could this be that hard to answer?
Naturally, the BBC strives to make it seem as if all is right and good with this destruction of the English legal system because, after all, these people are just doing what "their culture" requires that they do, neatly ignoring the fact that they are in England and NOT back in their own homeland.
Aydarus Yusuf has lived in the UK for the past 15 years, but he feels more bound
by the traditional law of his country of birth - Somalia - than he does by the
law of England and Wales."Us Somalis, wherever we are in the world, we have our own law. It's not Islamic, it's not religious - it's just a cultural thing."
Well, isn't that nice?
A number of parallel legal universes have been quietly evolving among minority
communities. As well as Somali customary law, Islamic and Jewish laws
are being applied and enforced in parts of the UK.
Worse still...
While religious leaders in the UK's Jewish and Muslim communities have not
sought to enforce their own versions of criminal law, they have steadily built up their capacity to deal with civil matters within their own religious codes. What's more, they are doing it with the help of English law.Crucially, the legislation does not insist that settlements must be based on English law; all that matters is the outcome is reasonable and both parties agree to the process. And it's in this space that religious courts, applying the laws of another culture, are growing in the UK.
Naturally, the BBC spends 90% of the piece saying how benign this bifurcation of the courts is and that Muslims wouldn't wish to push their extreme Sharia laws for criminal matters in the UK. "That simply would never be acceptable", they quote former judge Gerald Butler as saying... as if just saying it assures us all that these extremists wouldn't push for it anyway.
Remember "There will be peace in our time", England?
After all, to use a supposed Middle Eastern expression, once they get a nose under the tent it won't take much to push on through. Once Sharia is accepted even in its lesser forms, Muslims will have every reason to expect that they can expand that usage of their own "courts" and to ignore the rightfully applicable English laws on any given subject.
...
Pertinent Links:
1) England: One Law for Muslims, one for the Rest
2) The end of one law for all?
The end of one law for all?
By Innes Bowen
...
Aydarus is not alone in this desire. A number of parallel legal universes have been quietly evolving among minority communities. As well as Somali customary law, Islamic and Jewish laws are being applied and enforced in parts of the UK.
What they mustn't do - and this must never happen - is to stray into the field of criminal matters
Gerald Butler QCIslamic and Jewish law remains confined to civil matters. But the BBC's Law in Action programme has learned that the Somali court hears criminal cases too.
One of the most serious cases it has dealt with was the "trial" of a group of young men accused of stabbing a fellow Somali.
"When the suspects were released on bail by the police, we got the witnesses and families together for a hearing," says Aydarus. "The accused men admitted their guilt and apologised. Their fathers and uncles agreed compensation."
...
Read the whole thing...
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