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What did the Archbishop actually say? |
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Sunday, 10 February 2008 |
There has been a strong reaction in the media and elsewhere to the Archbishop
of Canterbury's remarks of yesterday on civil and religious law.
The full text of the Archbishop's lecture at the Royal Courts of Justice 'Civil
and Religious Law in England: a religious perspective', can be viewed on the
Archbishop's website, here:
Archbishop's Lecture - Civil and Religious Law in England: a Religious
Perspective
The transcript of his interview on yesterday's World at One programme can also
be viewed online, here:
BBC Interview - Radio 4 World at One.
The Archbishop made no proposals for sharia in either the lecture or the
interview, and certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of
parallel jurisdiction to the civil law.
Instead, in the interview, rather than proposing a parallel system of law, he
observed that "as a matter of fact certain provisions of sharia are already
recognised in our society and under our law" . When the question was put to him
that: "the application of sharia in certain circumstances - if we want to
achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples' religion - seems
unavoidable?", he indicated his assent.
The Archbishop opened his lecture by noting importantly that the very term
sharia is not only misunderstood, but is the focus of much fear and anxiety
deriving from its 'primitivist' application in some contexts. As such he said
that sharia is a method of law rather than a single complete and final system
ready to be applied wholesale to every situation, and noted that there was room,
even within Islamic states which apply sharia, for some level of 'dual
identity', where the state is not in fact religiously homogenous.
In his lecture, the Archbishop sought carefully to explore the limits of a
unitary and secular legal system in the presence of an increasingly plural
(including religiously plural) society and to see how such a unitary system
might be able to accommodate religious claims. Behind this is the underlying
principle that Christians cannot claim exceptions from a secular unitary system
on religious grounds (for instance in situations where Christian doctors might
not be compelled to perform abortions), if they are not willing to consider how
a unitary system can accommodate other religious consciences. In doing so the
Archbishop was not suggesting the introduction of parallel legal jurisdictions,
but exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within
existing arrangements for religious conscience.
He explained that his core aim was to: "to tease out some of the broader issues
around the rights of religious groups within a secular state" and was using
sharia as an example. These include:
- How when the law does not take seriously religious motivation, it fails to
engage with the community in question and opens up real issues of power by the
majority over the minority, with potentially harmful effects for community
cohesion.
- How the distinction between cultural practices and those arising from genuine
religious belief might be managed.
- How to deal with the possibility that a 'supplementary jurisdiction "could
have the effect of reinforcing in minority communities some of the most
repressive or retrograde elements in them, with particularly serious
consequences for the role and liberties of women".
At the end of the lecture the Archbishop referred to a suggestion by a Jewish
jurist that there might be room for 'overlapping jurisdictions' in which
"individuals might choose in certain limited areas whether to seek justice under
one system or another". This is what currently happens both within the Jewish
arrangements and increasingly in current alternative dispute resolution and
mediation practice.
He concludes his lecture with the comment:
"if we are to think intelligently about the relations between Islam and British
law, we need a fair amount of 'deconstruction' of crude oppositions and
mythologies, whether of the nature of sharia or the nature of the Enlightenment"
The lecture, which was given before an audience of about 1000 people and which
was chaired by the Lord Chief Justice, was the first in a series of six lectures
and discussions which are being given by senior Muslim and other lawyers and
theologians at the Temple Church on the general theme of 'Islam in English Law'.
Source: The Archbishop of Canterbury
Comments posted are the sole opinion of the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of AIM. |
