Ministers have abandoned an inquiry into the rise of secretive Sharia councils that deal in Islamic justice – because the Muslim courts refused to help.
The failure of the Ministry of Justice probe has generated new fears among politicians and pressure groups about the increasing influence of Sharia courts.
They are worried the courts’ decisions may run against the law of the land, particularly in divorce settlements for women.
The scrapping of the inquiry comes in a week when Islamic extremists have launched a campaign to declare ‘Sharia-controlled zones’ across Britain.
By contrast…
Regardless of one’s opinion on the Murdoch/NOTW/hacking story, is it not small beer compared to the rise of a parallel and unaccountable system of Islamic justice that is inimical to our own?
Why is it that our politicians expend so much energy over a relatively trivial matter – and even consider themselves at liberty to try by TV non-British citizens such as Rupert Murdoch – but allow resident Muslim citizens to refuse to be questioned at all?
Instead of limply abandoning their investigations of Sharia, shouldn’t our government be fiercely defending the British system of justice? It does, after all, it enshrine the moral values that we are told underpin the Murdoch enquiry.