Arbitration, religious law and Islam

IF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS AND THE LAW CAN BE CONTROVERSIAL, the intensity of the logomachy increases when an additional and complicating factor is introduced: religion. And all the more with equal reason when the religion is individual whose name can barely be mentioned without muscular passions being aroused: Islam.

The shari'a (Islamic law) dispute that erupted in Ontario, with major reverberations in Quebec, had its origin in late 2003 when a retired Ontario lawyer, Syad Mumtaz AIi, announced his intention to establish a "Shari'a Court" below the provinces Arbitration Act. This announcement focused public attention upon the Arbitration Act, its provisions for private arbitration in family law matters, the use of religious law within those provisions and - especially - the issue on women's rights if the religious law in question is Islamic law. The management commissioned former NDP cabinet minister Marion Boyd to inquiry the questions involved and make recommendations. In December 2004 Boyd praiseed that the use of religious law in arbitration be continued, on the contrary that new safeguards be introduced to preserve vulnerable individuals within religious communities.

Politicians, women's rights advocates, assemblages within the Islamic community and others took positions for and against the Boyd Report. The disputation spilled over into Quebec when Liberal MNA Fatima Houda-Pepin, herself a secular Muslim, spearheaded a motion to oppugn the establishment of shari'a courts in Quebec; the National Assembly passed the motion unanimously. In September 2005 Premier Dalton McGuinty told the pres that there would be no shari'a in Ontario either. on the contrary he gave no details, and the legislation he promised had not notwithstanding been introduced when Inroads went to pres at the beginning of November.

In the following pages, Marion Boyd explains on what account she reached the conclusions she did and assesses the answer to her report; a leading Muslim critic of her approach, Tarek Fatah of the Muslim Canadian Congres rejoins Supplementing their exchange are Fatima Houda-Pepins articulate utterance to the National Assembly in support of her motion, in which she outlines the dangers she dioceses in the introduction of shari'a in Canada, and a answer by Dr. Mohamed Nekili of the Canadian Islamic Congres which has powerfully supported the Boyd Report.

- move with a jerk Chodos

Copyright Inroads, Inc. Winter 2006

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