Iraqi plan for Sharia law 'a sop to clerics', say women

I thought I saw something about that a few days ago.

What you apparently saw, several weeks ago, was a number of very confused/negligent/ill-intentioned people's misinterpretation/misrepresentation of an article in a legal journal.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=782855

I hesitate to go into the matter again, but essentially, the proposal is that, under legislation that allows for people/corporations to select the body of rules that will apply to voluntary arbitration of disputes, Shari'a rules could be applied.

Arbitration may be agreed to in order to resolve certain types of disputes, under clauses in contracts or by the parties' agreement when a dispute arises. This is the case in Canada, the United States, every other similar nation, and in international law.

Parties may agree to go to arbitration rather than to court in those types of disputes, in which case neither party may take the dispute to a court. If both parties have not agreed, this cannot be done.

Arbitration agreements DO NOT OPERATE to oust the jurisdiction of the courts in divorce cases, custody and support cases, and any other matters that involve a public interest.

Arbitration agreements most definitely HAVE NOTHING TO DO with criminal law.

The instances in which Shari'a law might be applied in Canada would be cases like disputes over repayment of debts, disputes over the sale and purchase of merchandise, or disputes between partners in a business, off the top of my head.

And it would ONLY be applied if the parties AGREED to have their dispute decided by an arbitrator whom they instructed to apply it.

This is obviously a completely different matter from allowing women's rights in marital disputes -- relating to divorce, custody, support, property -- to be decided according to rules that put them at a disadvantage, without their agreement.

It would be nice if this dumb rumour about something similar happening in Canada could be put to rest now.



In the meantime, how fascinating to see that women are about to be the first losers in the "liberation" of Iraq.

Anybody remember what happened when Afghanistan was "liberated" from the Soviet Union?

Odd how that happens.

.

(A woman in Iraq)

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/