UK: Conservatives discuss Sharia with law students
Harborough, Oadby & Wigston MP and Shadow Attorney General Edward Garnier and Leicester City Councillor and Conservative Group Leader, Ross Grant, met male and female Muslim law students attending Leicester and Warwick Universities last Friday, 22 January 2010, to discuss current legal issues including the interface between Sharia councils and the application of Sharia laws on the one hand and the law of England and Wales and its application on the other.
Edward Garnier and Ross Grant took part in a free-flowing discussion led by Rajnaara Akhtar, a post-graduate studying for her doctorate in law at Warwick University who comes from Oadby.
“Ross and I spent about an hour talking about issues such as the application of the two legal heritages in Britain, making it plain that in the courts of England the law of England was and must remain paramount but that what people did privately to sort out disputes was up to them, unless it led to oppression or unfairness or affected the rights of others under the law of the land. Sharia councils do not operate in public and may not have the same regard to the rights and interests of women in family disputes or inheritance cases. They may not though be used nearly as much by young British Muslims as some would have us believe. Amongst other issues, we also discussed the role of the Attorney General within the context of the Iraq War and more widely and the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, that is whether foreign politicians can be tried here for crimes alleged to have been committed overseas. It was a truly positive meeting and I came away encouraged by the intellectual curiosity and genuine openness and interest of those at the meeting.”
Ross Grant and Edward Garnier then spoke at a meeting organised and chaired by Ismail Patel of the Friends of Al-Aqsa attended by representatives from mosques and Muslim groups from Leicester and Oadby.
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Source: Politics (English), h/t London Muslim
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