by MARYAM NAMAZIE
For more information on the open letter, please contact Pragna Patel (Southall Black Sisters), Gina Khan and Maryam Namazie (One Law for All) and Gita Sahgal (Centre for Secular Space). Contact details below.
As a group of women’s human rights organisations and campaigners, we express our profound concern and disappointment with the terms of reference and recent appointments to the government’s ‘independent review’ on Sharia councils and arbitration forums in the UK. We attach previous correspondence on the issue: (Correspondence-with-Government-on-Sharia-Courts).
For several years, we have been highly critical of the ways in which, in the name of religious tolerance and freedom, the government and state institutions have kow-towed to demands made by leaders and spokespersons of the religious-right. This has resulted in the accommodation of arbitration systems based on minority religious personal laws. We have been alarmed at the growing acceptance of such personal laws to govern private and family matters: areas where, arguably, the greatest human rights violations of minority women in the UK take place.
There is considerable evidence to show how these parallel religious ‘legal’, mediation and arbitration systems operate in ways that violate the fundamental principles of protection, equality and non-discrimination in respect of women’s rights in relation to marriage, divorce, children, property and inheritance. See for example: “Women and Sharia Law: The Impact of Legal Pluralism in the UK” by Elham Manea published in May 2016, which documents the harmful and even life threatening consequences for vulnerable minority women who are denied the right to equality before the law.
Precisely for these reasons, we had welcomed the ‘independent review’, believing it to be a genuine attempt to look at the work of Sharia councils and Muslim arbitration tribunals in the UK in the context of rising religious extremism and fundamentalism and its impact on the human rights of black and minority women. Nevertheless it is evident from the limited terms of reference and the makeup of the review panel that the review is in danger of becoming seriously compromised and as such, we fear that it will command little or no confidence.
Below we set out four of our major concerns:
1) The terms of reference of the review: The terms have ruled out a full evaluation of the harm caused by the existence of discriminatory religious ‘legal’, mediation and arbitration systems. Our information suggests that the existence of parallel or informal justice systems in itself creates conflicts in law and gaps in human rights protection. Yet we note that the review is not addressing this vital issue. Instead, the terms of reference suggest that the task of the review is to improve the functioning of systems that are discriminatory in effect and intent. We urge you to remove wording on ‘seeking out examples of best practice in relation to governance, transparency, and assuring compliance and compatibility with UK law’. Instead, the review should be free to examine whether the existence of sharia councils, mediation and arbitration systems undermine access to justice, and indeed undermine the Constitution by endorsing the existence of parallel legal systems.
2) The panel: Although some of those appointed to the panel come from judicial and family/children law backgrounds, two Islamic ‘scholars’ have been appointed as advisers to the chair, Mona Siddiqui who is herself a theologian. This is cause for alarm: the government has constituted a panel more suited to a discussion of theology than one which serves the needs of victims and is capable of investigating the full range of harms caused by Sharia councils and tribunals, particularly for women.
The inquiry panel should be an impartial Judge-led investigation into the entire spectrum of human rights violations caused by the existence and functioning of Sharia councils and tribunals. It should be clearly framed as a human rights investigation not a theological one.
2 a) Competencies of Advisers to the panel: The inquiry should be properly advised by women’s rights advocates and legal experts in British and foreign laws and international human rights covenants. Advisers to the panel need to have a track record of respecting and protecting human rights, particularly those of women. They need to understand the impacts of informal justice and parallel legal systems on women (and indeed on minorities). They need to be conversant with existing laws regarding, for instance, the recognition of civil divorce in many jurisdictions; and be able to find appropriate experts to give evidence to the panel. They also need to be able to assist the panel to investigate transnational fundamentalist networks in promoting Sharia law in different countries and their role in Britain. They need to be fearless in looking for evidence even if it implicates powerful interests.
2 b) Imams are not the right advisers: Theologians and religious scholars simply do not have the requisite skills or knowledge of existing legal practice and constitutional issues. Knowledge of theology is simply not the same as knowledge of the law either in Britain or elsewhere.
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