Islamic Courts

Campaigners want power of Sharia courts limited
Campaigners are warning that Sharia courts should be prevented from presiding over divorces and other family matters, and the Government should stop them from becoming an alternative legal system. A letter signed by more than 150 organisations and individuals – including the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organisation and the Quilliam Foundation – will be delivered to the Prime Minister on Thursday. It will warn: “Successive governments have appeased undemocratic religious power brokers in minority communities who have sought to gain power through multicultural and now multi-faith social policies. This has resulted in “outsourcing legal justice to what are in effect kangaroo courts that deliver highly discriminatory and second-rate forms of ‘justice.’”