Shari'a In Ontario: No Justice

Dalton McGuinty says that Muslim women have nothing to fear from Islamic family law arbitration courts in Ontario. After all, don't we already have similar arbitration for Christians and Jews?

But here's the problem, according to the International Campaign Against Shari'a Court in Canada:

1 Shari’a contains regulations concerning all aspects of human behavior including those which we, in Canada, consider to be under the criminal code as well as those, such as Family Law, which in Canada are governed by Provincial law.

2 Shari’a applies to all Muslims no matter where in the world they live.

3.Shari’a denies anyone the right to leave Islam. Those born into a Muslim home are considered, under Shari’a, to be Muslim forever.

4.The laws of Shari’a supercede the laws of the nation state. In Muslim countries, the laws of the country must be in accordance with Shari’a. In non-Muslim countries, Muslims are to follow Shari’a as much as they can without breaking the law, and to make every attempt to alter the law so that it is in accordance with Shari’a.

And that's the difference.

Proponents of shari'a tribunals do not intend for their tribunals to act simply as adjuncts to the civil court system; under Islamic law, they cannot. They intend for them to supplant the civil courts in Canada for disputes within the Muslim community.

Our governing classes have become so convinced of the multicultural myth that they've actually come to believe it. They can't see that Islam can't be made to fit within multiculturalism. Islam doesn't see itself simply as one religion or one culture amongst others, but as a totalizing political, economic and legal system unto itself. The notion of separation of religion and state--its current radical secularist form bastardized from traditional Christian teachings of the city of God and the city of man--isn't even conceivable in Islam.

We have no guarantee that shari'a tribunals will not fall into the hands of radical Muslims, if they haven't already.

How easy is it for women to be intimidated by pressures within their own communities to follow these tribunals' decisions, and not to appeal to the civil courts? How much easier, indeed, to ship them back to their home countries to keep them under the rule of shari'a if they threaten to go to civil court?

Allowing shari'a courts into Ontario will essentially create a separate judicial system for Muslims. How can a civil society exist without a common civil justice system?

Source: Toronto Star