British government allows first official Sharia courts which, surprise surprise, give women unequal deal

[TheDullWitch]

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4749183.ece

What a coincidence, in both domestic violence cases, the women went back to abusive husbands and police dropped charges. I can't believe we are not ensuring Muslim British women have full protection of law.

Kathy - i think my position would be 'having thought that ...' rather than 'in favour of'.

As a fundemental democratic principle I don't think that any other system should run in place of, or in parallel to, the functions of the law. It's not a question of deciding whether this or that system is acceptable or as good as or more sexist than another.

A discussion foru or voluntary mediation process, yes possible - and anyway, how ca you stop that? If I run a major network of beekeepers and we have issues with some people playing fast and loose with the agreed guidelines of beekeeping and decide to settle an arbitration about who is being nasty to someone else's bees amongst ourselves, how can the law top us? It would be a travesty if it did. And it MIGHT help us stop a major feud or get things aired before they hit the real courts. BUT if we tried to say that our verdict was that Worzel McTurpin from Grindstone Cottage should have all his honey forcibly seized and poured over his head for planting bee-unfriendly weeds, then poor Worzel should NOT be bound to accept, and he should have recourse to UK law to keep our Beekeeper Enforcemnet Officers out of his cottage.