Just That Much Closer To Englandistan
Is it possible to place an entire nation on National Suicide Watch?

Here's some of the article from The Times of London; (Emphasis and comments mine) Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts

Abul Taher

Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases (bad reporting on the part of The Times reporter Abul Taher. Domestic violence is criminal, not civil). 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.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county 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 Siddiqi, 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 (the door opens...), provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.

Siddiqi said: “We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are.” (How Orwellian.)

The disclosure that Muslim courts have legal powers in Britain comes seven months after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was pilloried for suggesting that the establishment of sharia in the future “seems unavoidable” in Britain. (He's now officially on "The Protected List". Nice job, Rowan.)

In July, the head of the judiciary, the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, further stoked controversy when he said that sharia could be used to settle marital and financial disputes. (Him too...)

In fact, Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours (Disturbing the peace is a civil charge in Britainistan? Sloppy reporting again, Abul.)

It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations. (Hold on, in the very first paragraph of this article, Abul tells us that sharia courts only deal with moslem "civil cases".)

Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of “smaller” criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them ("a greater number..." But Abul already said only civil cases). “All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases,” said Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.

Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolve civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act. (And they are truly civil courts that apply to a very minimum of the populace, unlike the millions of moslems now, and still streaming into, the UK. You simply cannot compare a pimple with malignant melanoma.)

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims. (No shit.)

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men. (Equal protection under the law? Not in Englandistan.)

Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons. The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment. (There's that nasty criminal court stuff that Abul forgot about.)