Australian goverment has considered accommodating Shariah law in Australias legal system 2010. Alternative Law Journal, 33, 214-219 Senator Cory Bernardi, who was vilified last year for warning of creeping infiltration by the Islamic legal system. The Government has quickly rejected the submission by The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils to its multiculturalism inquiry this week. But it opened the door to separate Islamic laws in the first place. And by resuscitating the discredited concept of multiculturalism it has given the wink to policies that will divide the country. The opening for sharia law began with the relatively benign demand for halal food (meat from livestock slaughtered according to Islamic religious practice). Then the Government ordered a review of tax law amendments which might be required to allow Islamic finance. Senator Nick Sherry, when he was assistant Treasurer in 2009, directed the Board of Taxation to undertake a “comprehensive review of Australia’s tax laws to ensure that, wherever possible, they do not inhibit the expansion of Islamic finance, banking and insurance products”. Yesterday, Attorney-General Robert McClelland declared: “There is no place for sharia law in Australian society.” So will he now risk the wrath of the multicultural police and reject the sharia law of Islamic finance too? Bernardi has been the most vocal opponent in parliament of what he sees as “soft sharia”, the thin end of the wedge, a well-documented strategy employed in other democratic countries to eventually bring in a parallel Islamic justice system - which would weaken our rule of law and treat women as second-class citizens. “In other nations we’ve found that an accommodation of sharia finance leads into an accommodation of any number of other areas where sharia is implemented, such as in property disputes, such as in marital separations,” he said. He was pilloried as a “racist” and a “bigot” when he raised his concerns last year, not just by the Greens and Labor but also by “moderate” Liberal MPs. Independent Andrew Wilkie called him “ a disgrace to the high office you hold”. Amanda Vanstone said he should be sacked. And an anonymous “senior Liberal MP” said his comments about Islam were “a low way of reigniting the race debate”. But, sure enough, AFIC’s submission proves his case. It says government involvement in Islamic finance and halal food certification supports its argument that sharia law is compatible with Australian law. “Is it true that Australia will never consider Islamic law? It seems that in two areas, namely Islamic finance and halal food, the Australian Government has been actively involved,” the submission says. “A halal certificate is a written fatwa and, by co-signing the certificate, it indicates that the Australian Government has been already involved in sharia matters.” The submission says: “Multiculturalism should lead to legal pluralism [as shown in Islamic finance and halal certification] and twin tolerations.” And it claims that, while there are Muslims who believe Islam is immutable, sharia can be adapted to the Australian context so it is compatible with local values. But it adds that if Australia “demands a compromise from Islam, which should be open to other values, [there should also be] a similar demand of Australia. “It is not only Australian Muslims who should reconcile these identities, but also all Australians”. So there you have it in black and white: Australia has to change its fundamental laws and values to accommodate a pushy minority. No other group of migrants has made such demands. Muslims account for a tiny 1.7 per cent of Australia’s population, according to the 2006 census. For the most part they live peaceably within the existing law. The average Australian Muslim family doesn’t seem to be crying out for a more repressive regime from abroad. So AFIC does them no favours by agitating for special treatment. As we reported yesterday, elements of sharia law are already being practised in Australia with Islamic divorces being conducted by imams at western Sydney mosques. Yet the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2001 that sharia law is “not compatible with democracy”. The court made special mention of the sneaky methods used by political Islam to work with the existing legal order in order to replace it with sharia. It is called “takiyye, which consisted in hiding its beliefs until it had attained that goal”. The court was ruling on a ban by the Turkish Constitutional Court of the Islamist party Refah on the grounds that “democracy is the antithesis of sharia”. Surely Turkey understood the threat of sharia better than most. AFIC’s claim that sharia is flexible flies in the face of evidence across the world that it is not compatible with the fundamental concept that underpins our democracy, that everyone is equal under the law. As we have seen in the murderous protests that erupted in the Islamic world over cartoons of the prophet Mohammed, sharia does not allow the sort of freedom of speech we take for granted. Criticism of Mohammed, for instance, is punishable by death. Women are treated as second-class citizens under sharia, eligible for a smaller share of inheritance, for instance, and unequal when it comes to marriage, divorce and custody of children. It’s not “racist” or “bigoted” or “irrational” to say that. Bernardi said yesterday he did feel vindicated by the news. In a speech last night at the Roseville Golf club on Sydney’s North Shore, he steered clear of controversy but did point out that “time and time again we see conservative voices that seek to protect our traditions and way of life shouted down by people who don’t agree”. The debate then descends into “character assassination vitriol and misrepresentation”. One of the few people to publicly support Bernardi has been Liberal MP Kevin Andrews, who warned that political leaders who fail to speak on the rise of extreme Islam were to blame for vigilante racist groups being launched. And right on cue this week, just as Andrews predicted, there was a protest against sharia law in Melbourne by a new anti-Islamic group called the Australia Defence League, modelled on a racist British group. The protest turned violent when a larger group of left-wing activists arrived. Just as happened during the divisive Pauline Hanson years, vigilante groups spring up when people feel their concerns are being ignored or downplayed. aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/fm2010/fm84/fm84h.html
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 13:21:10 +0000
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