Bakustra wrote:Now, then, I'll lay out my position again. My position is that it is beneficial to states that have a minority group with a distinct legal tradition to try and allow this tradition to be incorporated as much as is possible as part of the overall legal system, without betraying the fundamental beliefs of that system. This is beneficial because it provides an alternative in the case of biases or prejudices in the existing court system, as was the reason for implementing First Nations/Native American courts in Canada/the US.
To the extent that this practice has worked in Native American groups in the US, it has only worked because of superseding Federal and state law to punish more serious offenses. There is also considerable evidence that it has led to precisely the outcomes that I have decried as to why religious groups should not be entitled to an alternative system (e.g.,
very high rates of domestic violence against women and children), requiring additional Federal action to properly regulate such communities.
Additionally, please provide evidence that minority groups with distinct legal traditions require this sort of accomodation. Do Jews get their own courts? Japanese? Chinese? French? Why should we afford Muslims special accomodations, given that (unlike Indian tribes) they are not separate sovereigns within the United States?
It is also beneficial because it allows the minority group to become part of the overall culture without being as pressured to decide whether they identify more with the state or with their minority culture.
That hasn't been true at all with Native Americans, and furthermore how can importing unimportant aspects of Shariah law into the west while tossing out all of the anti-Muslim, antiwomen and children nonsense from it possibly remove pressures to "decide" between the state or minority culture if the use of Shariah law is important to this culture?
Fundamentally, why should they be offered the option of an assimilation-free ticket into Western society? How can you be a member of a society without identifying to some degree with its values?
This may or may not be practical for Islamic legal traditions beyond purely religious matters, but dismissing the idea out of hand and slandering the legal tradition certainly doesn't help people integrate!
Their legal tradition is backwards and abhorent. You obviously disagree with this sentiment, but you have still failed to identify a single school of Islamic legal thought which grants men and women equivalent treatment, nor have you identified a single subset of Islamic law resulting in legal sanctions which you think can be incorporated. (Incidentally, I shall take your refusal to further discuss the fact that fasting during Ramadan=birth defects and harm to women as a concession). So, please, provide an example of a body of Shariah law that could be incorporated into or substituted for the western judicial system which would not lead to abhorent and objectively harmful results.
Moreover, in every instance in which a western culture
has permitted Shariah law to operate in parallel with its own justice system, the result has been unambiguously harmful to women and children's rights. Does this not give you the least pause?
Now, Ossus, since you've finally managed to clarify yourself,
There is not one single member of the board who had the slightest difficulty understanding my position outside of your obfuscatory, worthless ass, nor did you lack for clarification when other members of the board immediately explained your comprehension failure.
why do you feel that a) no part of Islamic civil law can be incorporated into a developed society at any point because aspects of it are sexist,
Even apart from the inherent inefficiencies of running parallel judicial systems, every attempt to integrate even portions of Islamic law into western countries has failed miserably.
Greece, Germany (see OP), and
the UK have all experimented very unsuccessfully with various levels of integration.
Partial integration of Shariah law produces problems of cherry-picking, and destroys the very central tenat of civilized justice systems that people are equal under the law. Complete integration is even worse because it produces results like the ones which I have described: it denigrates women, harms children, and promotes domestic violence among the myriad social harms described in the law review discussion.
b) that no Muslim women could sincerely want parts of Shari'a to be implemented,
It doesn't matter, to my view, whether or not they sincerely want parts of Shariah law to be implemented. They shouldn't get that because Shariah law is objectively harmful to women (and children) as a group.
c) that all Muslim men who wish to use Shari'a for some legal purpose are misogynists?
Strawman fallacy. I've argued that
Shariah law is misogynistic; not that anyone who supports some aspect of it must therefore be a misogynist.
Well, to be frank, I don't think that most religious laws are compatible with civil and criminal cases, but on the other hand, Native American courts that rely on traditional religious law as part of their jurisprudence have been fairly successful.
Evidence? Define your criteria for success in this regard. Most people would say something like, "A justice system which does not produce substantially more incidents of domestic violence than the alternative secular one," but obviously you
can't be using anything like that metric. So please enlighten us as to how you are evaluating the success or failure of the tribal law system.
Edit: And as for your bullshit about how Islamic systems of Shariah law are
oh-so-different from one another:
Sharia law is far from monolithic and consistent; there are four prominent schools of Sharia in Sunni Islam9 and one major school in Shia Islam.10 Despite the inconsistencies, however, there is consensus within all schools regarding the necessity of the death penalty for apostasy and sexual “crimes” including homosexuality, on the need for women to be veiled, and on different treatment under the law accorded to men compared with women as well as Muslims compared with non-Muslims.
"
- PeZook
