According to the Timesonline, 21 July, an increasing number of non-Muslims are turning out at Sharia courts and use it as a legal solution to resolve commercial disputes and other civil matters.
In a case last month, the Timesonline reports, a non-Muslim Briton took his Muslim business partner to the Sharia court to sort out a dispute over the profits in their car fleet company.
The tribunal found out because of certain things the Muslims had done, the agreement claimed by the non-Muslim indeed existed.
The non-Muslim claimed on the trial there had been an oral agreement between the pair, and the court eventually awarded £48,000, according to the Timesonline.
The Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT), established in 2007, has legal legitimacy under the Arbitration Act 1996, says it operates “within the legal framework of England and Wales”, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The MAT told the Timesonline 5 per cent of its cases involved non-Muslims who were using the courts because they were less troublesome and more informal than the English legal system.
Freed Chedie, a spokesman for Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siqqiqi, a barrister who set up the tribunal told the Fiona Hamilton, London correspondent from the Timesonline they put weight on oral agreements, whereas the British courts do not.
He went on to say the tribunal had adjudicated on at least 20 cases involving non-Muslims so far this year, the Timesonline reports.
The timesonline has also learnt the MAT is planning to triple the number of its courts by setting up in ten new British cities by the end of the year.
So far, the body operates court-like arbitration hearings under influence of Sharia law often count only in London, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham and Nuneaton, said the Daily Telegraph.
Although Sharia courts have been operating in the civil jurisdiction since the early 1980s, they have been doing so only in the shadows and in an ad-hoc fashion, Fiona Hamilton said in the Timesonline.
A report by independent think-tank Civitas said there were at least 85 Sharia tribunals operating in Britain, the Daily Mail has learnt.
According to the Timesonline, if the MAT was successful in bringing number of the exisiting Sharia councils into line with its own courts, it would in effect create Britian’s largest national co-operative of tribunals.
Anti-Sharia campaigners expressed their alarms the Islamic system is radical and biased against women, , according to the Timesonline.
Denis MacEoin, who wrote a recent report for Civitas examining the spread of Sharia in Britain, said MAT’s claims about non-Muslim clients “raises all sorts of questions”.
He said in an interview with the Timesonline: “You really need to ask why. What advantages could that possibly have for them going to an Islamic court? Any Sharia court is going to be implementing aspects of a law that runs contrary to British law, because of the way it treats women for example.”
Inayat Bunglawala, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that organisations should be free to conduct arbitration under Sharia law, provided that it did not infringe British law and was on a voluntary basis.
Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action, Baroness Warsi, who is Muslim, told the Timeseonline there were many forums for arbitration and alternative dispute resolution in Britain.
She said there is no problem with that and as long as it is always subject to English law.
The spread of Sharia law has become increasingly controversial since last year, after the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams saying the role for Sharia law seemed “unavoidable”, according to the BBC.
The Lord Chief Justice, who stepped down last October told the Guardian after Dr Rowan’s controversial claiming and backed Sharia law, said there was no reason Sharia law’s principles could not be used in mediation as long as it is subject to the “jurisdiction of the English and Welsh court".
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