LONDON: Five Sharia courts have been set up in different cities of Britain with powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.
The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence, according to a report. The Islamic courts have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network's headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh, the report said.
Rulings issued by the five sharia courts are enforceable with full power of the judicial system through the country courts or high court. Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims. Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddique, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.
Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.
"We realised that under the 'Arbitration Act', we can make rulings which can be enforced by country and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals," Siddique said. "This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are," he said. |