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Fresh row over Sharia in U.K.

LONDON: The controversy over whether Britain’s 1.6-million Muslims should have the right to practise Sharia laws was reignited on Friday after the country’s senior-most judge, Lord Chief Justice Phillips, said there was no reason whey they should not be allowed to use Islamic principles to settle financial and family disputes, including divorce.

However, Lord Phillips ruled out Sharia jurisdiction over criminal matters, saying there was no question of allowing Sharia courts to sit in Britain and mete out harsh punishments such as flogging, stoning or cutting off of hands of criminals.

Lord Phillips’s remarks, in a speech to East London Muslim Centre, was a throwback to the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s comments earlier this year that aspects of the Sharia could be incorporated into British laws. The Archbishop’s suggestion had sparked a furore, prompting calls for his resignation.

Lord Phillips, who had rushed to the Archbishop’s defence at the time, said there was a lot of “misconception” about the Sharia as though they were only about hanging and flogging. He said while there was “no question of such [Sharia] courts sitting in this country or such sanctions being applied here,” there was equally no reason why Sharia principles could not be used for mediation in family matters.

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