Former High Court chief justice Gerard Brennan says there is no room in Australia for sharia law to operate in parallel with the nation's legal system, and considers suggestions to the contrary "misconceived". Delivering a lecture at the University of NSW Law School last night, Sir Gerard said such a move could undermine the cohesiveness of Australia's multicultural society. He said, "There have been some suggestions that, following the growth of Islam in Australia, there is room for a pluralistic legal system, a system in which at least some parts of Islamic sharia law might operate as part of Australian law and in parallel with the common law system . . . that suggestion seems to me to be misconceived.
"No court could apply and no government could administer two parallel systems of law, especially if they reflect, as they inevitably would reflect, different fundamental standards."
Sir Gerard said that in a democracy the culture of the majority determines a country's legal structure. He said minority practices that offend the fundamental moral standards of the majority must be abandoned.
He said, "A Muslim is free to adhere to the beliefs, customs and practices prescribed by sharia law insofar as they are consistent with the general law in force in this country. That freedom must be respected and protected, but that does not mean that Islamic sharia should have the force of law."
He said the United Arab Emirates Supreme Court had explicated that sharia regulated all aspects of daily life, and if judicial reasoning or customs contradicted sharia they were invalid or unacceptable.
Sir Gerard said Australia's common law leaves a gap between the law and the actions of individuals, based on their own moral standards.
"We call that gap 'freedom'," he said.