jewish law?
Google "Beth Din". From the BBC:
Jewish courts are in daily use in Britain, and have been for centuries.
British Jews, particularly the orthodox, will frequently turn to their own religious courts, the Beth Din, to resolve civil disputes, covering issues as diverse as business and divorce.
"There's no compulsion", the registrar of the London Beth Din, David Frei, said. "We can't drag people in off the streets."
Both sides in a dispute must be Jewish, obviously, and must have agreed to have their case heard by the Beth Din. Once that has happened, its eventual decision is binding. English law states that any third party can be agreed by two sides to arbitrate in a dispute, and in this case the institutional third party is the Beth Din.
The Beth Din also takes care of a multitude of Jewish community affairs, many of which never give rise to any dispute: the dates of the Sabbath, kosher certification of caterers and bakers, medical ethics for Jewish patients and religious conversions. But it is in the areas of divorce and litigation that the Beth Din acts as a court in the western sense.
Divorce, in Jewish law, takes place when a document called a Get, written out by a scribe in Aramaic and ancient Hebrew, is handed by the husband to the wife. It is not legal the other way round, but that does not mean that men have it all their own way.
Both sides must agree, and the wife has to accept the document if she wishes the divorce to proceed. This need not always be in person, and a court official can stand in for the husband as a legal proxy in particularly fraught cases.
Jewish litigation is more varied, but a typical dispute might relate to a partnership, a Jewish school, a Jewish charity or a transaction between two businessmen.
The court can hear cases concerning quite large companies, but they must always be privately owned, in that both parties must be Jewish in order to accept the authority of the Beth Din.
The service provided by the Beth Din is best described as binding civil arbitration, and they do not seek to replace the state's civil courts.
"If one side does not accept the authority of the Beth Din, concerning divorce or any dispute, we cannot act", David Frei clarifies.
"And in the case of divorce, the parties must still obtain a civil divorce alongside the religious one."
All criminal matters are reserved for the UK's state courts, and there is no appetite for change.
Pei .........it's appeasement........and eventual capitulation.
No, it's called freedom, and I'd be very surprised if the US didn't have it as well.
Imagine I have a dispute with my neighbour. Say he built a tall fence, and it's blocking the light from my living room.
I could take him to a traditional court. I pay a lawyer, he pays a lawyer, a judge sits down and listens to the argument, then decides whether the fence stays or goes. It takes a long time, and costs a lot of money.
Alternatively, we could go to arbitration. That arbitrator can be anyone we agree on. It can be a friend, a solicitor, a priest, a rabbi, an imam, a doctor, a Jedi knight, a druid, a white witch, the manager of the local McDonald's, etc, etc.
Should we now pass a law that says anyone can arbitrate
but a Muslim?
taking the legal matters and RIGHTS of your own citizens out of your courts and into the dark hidden shadows of sharia jurisdiction .
No, that's not what's happening. This is a literally beneath the court system. Look up arbitration on Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrationq- are these people given an attorney to defend themself?
Up to them. Note that arbitration, which is all these sharia "courts" offer, is purely voluntary, and all parties have to agree. The decisions can be challenged in a proper court, although judges will usually support the arbitration process if it's conducted in a fair and serious manner.
amazing how the brits cry about how we treat non-citizens at gitmo......yet they permit the same for their own citizens..... in country.
What, you mean we permit people to resolve disputes in a mutually agreeable way? So, incidentally, does the US:
http://www.bethdin.org/services.htmAs a rabbinic court, the Beth Din of America is qualified to address Jewish communal and personal needs in the following areas:
<snip>
Rulings That Are Binding
Because the Beth Din conducts its cases in a manner consistent with the requirements of secular arbitration law, its rulings are legally binding and enforceable in the secular court system.
There is nothing whatsoever to stop sharia courts operating in America in exactly the same way they do in the UK. In fact, I suspect they already are, and it's just the sort of prejudices that show up so regularly on this board that stops them advertising the fact.
