A careless talk

Verity

The Lord Chief Justice comes across as another mahatamaesque who wants the world to admire what a great, tolerant soul he is. Like the nutjob Rowan Williams, another one.

There is no call for sharia in Britain, except among some Somalis who are in Britain for some reason I can't figure out. But they're very aggressive, as they were in Canada.

And speaking of Canada, it was Muslim women in Ontario who managed to outmanouevre this crackpot idea, aided and abetted, as always, by similar self-regarding morons anxious to demonstrate how frightfully tolerant and accepting they are.

Anyway, the Muslim women in Ontario got together and said, "No way, Bin Bey." And they won.

London Calling

But as Massoud Shadjareh, Chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission said in today’s Daily Mail, Mediation under Sharia law could save hundreds of thousands of pounds and would avoid parties having to go to court.

Which came first the donkey or the carrot?

Muslim Women in a Male dominated
Muslim society would suffer dearly and I am appalled that Lord Phillips
has suggested the unthinkable, a breach of British laws by allowing mediation and phoney trials behind closed doors, let alone opening the floodgates to division within our communities, and the seeping of extreme Islam in the process.

Is this England?

Talking of Lords, its seems a bit weird of late that it is they who are releasing all the Terrorist on our streets, knowing the threat they pose, too many for my liking......

What’s really going on here?

They should have their Wigs removed to expose the Truth and nothing but the Truth.....

Silent Hunter

Sorry?

Could someone remind me which country this is?

I was under the impression that we lived in a Christian, democratic country with an established code of law.

Are we to start hanging teenage girls from the jibs of cranes because they argue with the local mullah about wearing make up?

This is Britain right?

I haven't suddenly been transported to Iran then.

I really think we should be looking at the retirement age for the Law Lords if this is the best they can think of to say.

TomTom

The Rt Hon The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers

Born 21 January 1938.

Evacuated to Canada during the war. Bryanston School 1951-1956 where he studied classics.

1956-1958 National Service with the Royal Navy as Midshipman RNVR - home waters and Mediterranean; Cyprus patrol.

1958-1961 King's College Cambridge. Exhibitioner - 1 st Class degree in Part II Law Tripos.

1962 called to the Bar by the Middle Temple (Harmsworth Scholar). Practised at the Bar 1962-1987, specialising in Admiralty and Commercial work.

Junior Counsel to the Ministry of Defence and to the Treasury in Admiralty matters 1973-1978. QC 1978. Member of the Panel of Wreck Commissioners 1979. Recorder 1982-1987.

Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, 1987-1995, where sat in the Commercial Court and also presided over the Barlow Clowes and Maxwell prosecutions.

Promoted to the Court of Appeal 1995. Elevated to Lord of Appeal in Ordinary on 12 January 1999.

Elevated to Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice on 6 June 2000.

Succeeded Lord Woolf to become Lord Chief Justice on 1 October 2005.
Positions Held:

1975 - Governor of Bryanston School

1981 - Chairman of the Governors of Bryanston School

1991 - 1997 Chairman British Council Law Advisory Committee

1992 - 1997 Chairman Council of Legal Education

1993 - Vice President British Maritime Law Association

1998 - 2000 Chairman of the BSE Inquiry

1999 - Advisory Council of Institute of European and Comparative Law

1999 - Council of Management, British Institute of International and Comparative Law

1999 - Honorary Fellow of The Society for Advanced Legal Studies

2000 - Visitor - Nuffield College, Oxford

2000 - Visitor - University College, London

2000 - Chairman Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Public Records

2000 - Advisory Council of Institute of Global Law

2003 - Honorary Fellow King's College Cambridge

2004 - President, British Maritime Law Association
Honorary Degree

1998 LLD Exeter University, Birmingham University, University of London

2003 Doctor of Civil Law City University, London
|

Maritime Law and "all at sea"

London Calling

Thanks Tom Tom....

2008 - ? The Fool

canon alberic

When its not wrong its strangely boring. The most frightening piece of writing of the year, does Lord Philips really believe that equality is the essence of justice - The British Maritime Law Association. Who says irony is dead?

Frank Pulley

Must pop over to Melanie's page; she enjoy's sorting her namesake. Hope she hasn't disappeared for the week-end yet....

Commondog

If 'community cohesion' has to be tacked together by means of such hedging as is here and elswhere advocated, then perhaps we might all benefit by adopting the alternatve tack of being ourselves and leaving it to fray at will.

Adam McNestrie

I think on balance that I am probably opposed to the use of Sharia as a secularist and because of the possibility of weak members of the community being compelled to choose it over a secular court, but that isn’t the point I want to make. For once the media coverage of this has pleased me. It might just be the familiarity of the idea now, but the media coverage has been much more temperate and measured than it was when the Archbishop of Canterbury raised the same possibility a number of months ago.

I hope that this is because our attitudes on the subject have matured. I hope that it isn’t just because “Establishment figure supports introduction of Sharia Law” has become old hat. And I hope it isn’t because the Archbishop of Canterbury isn’t somehow more intimately tied up with our idea of ourselves as a nation, than the Lord Chief Justice. It would sadden me if we were less upset about it because it was Britain’s most senior judge saying it rather than Britain’s most senior clergyman.

To read more of my views link to my blog, Just who the hell are we? on wordpress.com at:
http://adammcnestrie.wordpress.com/

Tiberius

Someone really ought to beef up the law on treachery to stop these nuts from compromising our security.

But I suppose it his Lordship's human right to commit this act if he so wishes.

Chuck Unsworth

So the suggestion is that the Lord Chief Justice is a political appointment? Phillips made his comments on the legal aspects. It is not his place to comment on political or social desirability - and on reading his speech I do not think that he did. By contrast the Attorney General is a political appointment - and thus pronouncements by the AG should be considered in that context.

You're right to observe that others may interpret the LCJ's words differently. That is true everywhere. But let's be a little more rigorous than that, eh? Or have we now reached the point where any carefully laid out and argued point of view is picked over for purely political nuance?

Perhaps we have.

Next up, scrutiny and interpretation of The Bible and Magna Carta for political and social inferences with a view to revision and remodelling.

Ann

The man is a halfwit and lunatic. Yes, just like the archbish but far more dangerous to the democratic and free foundations of this country.
Where do these utter prats come from, for Pete's sake?

David

Had the talk only been about the tradition of arbitration in British law helping to settle disputes, and saving costs in the legal system, everyone would have been harumphing their approval at the noble traditions of British justice. Mention Sharia, and suddenly there is a problem. There's a word for that.

Verity

What's the word, David? And explain it in context, please. You do understand, don't you, that sharia is contrary to every democratic principle on which our nation depends?

I'm with Ann on this. And, as Melanie highlights on her post, the man's Jewish, for God's sake! He's another nutjob. Perhaps we'll see him and the Archbish of C, floral arrangements in their hair, skipping down Charing Cross Road together, singing a merry tune.

David

Sharia law, Verity, is as contrary to democratic principle as any theocratic legal system. However, like any theocratic legal system, there are principles to resolving disputes or covering civil issues that do not infringe on the overall legal systems and democracy of a country, particularly where that country, like the UK, has a long tradition of independent binding arbitration, which allows parties to a dispute to agree to principles to the solving of that dispute that they wish, whether based on prinicples laid down in a religious text, or elsewhere.

This is the reason that halacha can be used to settle disputes between members of the orthodox Jewish community, if both sides to the dispute agree. This is done, and has been done for sometime, without a notable loss of democracy, rule of law or freedom to the rest of the UK; no one aside from those who choose are subject to halacha. And this is exactly what is being proposed in this case. If you find this objectionable, then you should find the use of halacha in the same circumstances to be objectionable, and, arguably, you should also be protesting against the use of arbitration in UK law.

Verity

I don't know what halacha is, but I assume you're referring to the Beth Din. Their decisions to not carry legal weight.

Shariah elevates belief in their particular diety above our Common Law and cannot be allowed. As a side issue, it butchers the rights of women and the Muslim women who managed, using the weapons afforded them in a democracy, got the proposition killed in Ontario.

In any event, we cannot have our law fragmented. Live with it or leave the country. I believe the Beth Din is used to settle domestic disputes only. Sharia is aggressive and has ambitions to replace the established law of any country in which it gains a tiny toehold.

But the point here is, it is non-Muslim nutjobs who are advancing this cause. Loony/calculating Druidy Rowan Williams, who has been such a disaster for the CofE (as Tony Blair intended, when he appointed him) and now the Lord Chief Justice. There's a word for these people: attention-seekers.

David

Halacha is the Jewish equivalent to sharia.

It carries the same legal weight as sharia does with regards to the law in this country.

As to the rights of women, the use of sharia or halacha should not be an excuse to reduce the rights of women (or indeed, as the Chief Justice said, undermine any legal requirement and law in the UK. There are problems though, for example the so-called chained women who are refused a get from their husbands, making future religious marriage impossible, even if the civil law recognises the divorce.

"In any event, we cannot have our law fragmented. "

On the basis here, it already is. Binding arbitration allows for a variety of means to be used to settle disputes without going to the courts. The fact that Sharia is used doesn't change that all of a sudden.

"I believe the Beth Din is used to settle domestic disputes only."

You'd be wrong. It can be used for a variety of civil issues, in particular commercial disputes.

"Sharia is aggressive and has ambitions"

Sharia is a legal system, and as such does not have emotions or ambitions. There are people who believe that sharia should be, or equivalent to, the law of the land. This is wrong, and they should be resisted. However, there are plenty of moderate, normal muslims, who observe the use of halacha and other principles in arbitration and wish to do the same with their set of chosen principles (which they are allowed to do by the law). This does not indicate a desire to replace the law of the land, any more than the wish of orthodox Jewish communities wishing to use halacha to settle disputes indicates a desire by them to displace UK law with their own.

when in rome

I could most definitely sanction the public stoning of my ex wife.
And lets be fair, remember when these people asked for little incy wincy changes, now look what they have...yeah beheading has its plus points too.

Verity

David - sharia is theocratic and is based entirely on what someone in the desert believed his diety had instructed him to do. It has nothing to do with a real body of law. It is dangerous because it is not rational. They are ordered to kill Jews because "they're descended from pigs and monkeys", which is how they regard Jews. This is clearly based on the rantings of someone not too tethered to reality.

We in the advanced West - where everything that is in use today was invented - cannot tolerate such primitive injunctions to kill in our countries.

The modus operandi of the aggressive wing of Islam in Britain is to beg on their knees for an inch and rapidly expand it into 10 or 12 miles.

If Muslims don't like living under Anglo-Saxon Common Law, they know where to find the nearest airport.

Elaine

I am tired of these so called Justices and judges who are completely out of touch with the ordinary people of society. They live priviledged lives. I believe that most of them are puppets of the Churches and their out of date religions. Please do not mess about with our constitution, if it is
necessary only for the good of all and not the few.