{UAH} British court recognises sharia law in landmark divorce case
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2:46 AM |
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Mr Rajab Ali/ Mayimuna/ Semuwemba/ Katerega/ Edward Mo irundrua,
See here the British sense of the rule of law comes to the aid of oppressed Muslim women. One of the most oppressive aspects of Sharia law is in Marriage and Divorce where women are treated as chattels, worse than slaves. Under Sharia law, a muslim woman becomes the property of her husband and looses all her civil rights and liberty on marriage. The High Court is now saying in this landmark judgement that this is wrong and will not be allowed to continue in a civilised country. From now on, no woman in the UK will be treated as a second class citizen, or as a slave of the husband.
The effect of this judgement in recognising marriages entered into under Sharia law is that the High Court has brought Muslim women under the full jurisdiction of English common law.
This means:
1. The Islamic divorce practice of TALAQ will no longer apply to Muslim women. Men can not just swear three times in order to divorce their wives. They will have to go through the normal divorce process in the civil courts.
Under Sharia Law, women who want to divorce their husbands have to go through a Sharia Council which is filled with only old men, a majority of them uneducated and illiterate. This Sharia Council rarely grants divorce to women, even in horrible situations where the woman is suffering terrible domestic abuse including rape. Sharia law says a man can not rape his wife and is entitled to sex any time he wants even if the woman objects and does not want it.
2. Divorced muslim women will now have full access to the UK courts to determine the distribution of family assets after the divorce. The current situation, which has been very oppressive to muslim women, is that they have no rights whatsover to family property and assets when they are divorced by their husbands. The husband simply swears three times, and the woman is on the streets, with the clothes on her back. She does not even have any rights to her children, except only with the permission of the husband. All this is changing, with this High Court ruling, because at last, Muslim women will be able to go to the courts and to ask for a determination and distribution of family assets according to UK law, and Sharia law will no longer be applicable where the wife disputes the distribution of family assets post-divorce.
Sharia law and the Koran may think they are set in stone, in but in slow, progressive steps, its most oppressive elements are being chipped away at and systematically dismantled by the judiciary because parliament is too slow and too frightened to take action because of its fear of the Muslim lobby. Muslim women will one day be completely free to exercise their human rights in the same way as all human beings are entitled to. There is no place for slavery in the modern world.
The High Court Of England and Waless once again has set a glorious example for the civilised world to follow, as it has always done in landmark cases, such as Ex parte Pinochet in 2001 in which, for the first time, a court in the world threw away the doctrine of sovereign immunity and granted extra-territorial jurisdiction to any competent court in the world to try anyone who is alleged to have committed international crimes, namely the crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Bobby
British court recognises sharia law in landmark divorce case
Sharia law has been recognised by a British court for the first time after a judge made a landmark divorce ruling which could change the way Islamic marriage and divorce works in the UK.
The High Court ruled that an estranged couple's Islamic faith marriage, conducted in a ceremony called a nikah, falls under British matrimonial law despite it not being legally recognised as such.
It means Nasreen Akhtar will be free to bring her case to the divorce court and claim her share of the assets of her marriage where she previously would not have been able to.
In the high-profile case Mrs Akhtar and her businessman husband Mohammed Shabaz Khan were deemed to have a valid marriage.
The judge said the union should be recognised because the couple, who took their vows in 1998, lived as man and wife, introduced each other as such and had expectations similar to a British marriage contract.
The case will have significant implications for women who marry under sharia law but not UK law and could give them the right to divorce their husbands and split the assets related to the union, as well as securing a divorce more easily.
A report commissioned by Theresa May when she was home secretary revealed earlier this year that many women in Islamic marriages do not realise they have no legal protection under UK law unless they have a second civil ceremony alongside the nikah.
Under sharia law women often have to appeal to sharia councils, largely made up of men, in order to be released from their union and some have to make concessions in order to do so. Men are not obligated to do the same.
In the High Court case Mrs Akhtar's husband Mr Khan sought to block her application for divorce in the UK court on the basis that they were never legally married.
But Mr Justice Williams decided that the marriage was "entered into in disregard of certain requirements as to the formation of marriage".
He said the marriage was therefore "void" and that Mrs Akhtar is entitled to a decree of nullity. If he had ruled it was a non-marriage she would not have been able to make a case in the British divorce court.
The judge heard that the couple, who have a Pakistani background, had lived in London, Birmingham and Dubai. They had taken part in a nikah ceremony at a restaurant in Southall, west London, nearly 20 years ago.
Mrs Akhtar said the ceremony was conducted by an imam before about 150 guests.
Hazel Wright, a partner in the family law team at Hunters Solicitors said: "The law on cohabitation in this country is out of date and unsatisfactory.
"Now those who would have been outside the scope of the law to help them can seek compensation in the courts if their spouse has deliberately refused to have a civil ceremony after a religious ceremony.
"Ms Akhtar and Mr Khan both knew that their sharia marriage was not a legally registered marriage. It became vital for Ms Akhtar that the English divorce court rule in her favour, that the marriage should be recognised as void, and not a non-marriage.
"Otherwise she would not have any rights to make any financial claims for herself.
"The ruling that this marriage was just like a marriage for the couple, their families and friends, and indeed it satisfied the UAE authorities, and so was a valid but void marriage has given heart to many who otherwise suffer discrimination."
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