Lots of folks of certain religious faiths have their own laws. Orthodox Jews, for one. Even though they live in the US, when they do lawsuits and stuff, their case is decided by Orthodox Jewish law.
And that's all this was. Two groups of Muslims had an arbittration which they agreed would be judged under Sharia law. The group that lost decided, "No, we really didnt' want this decided under Sharia law."
So in that case, this stuff is all right, in one sense. In another, admittedly, it seems kind of silly. "Religious law' should be abolished totally, and humanitarian law put in its place. Or the US law of the city or state they're in.
Here's Rush on the subject.
Story #5: Judge Clarifies His Use of Sharia Law in Ruling
RUSH: A Hillsborough County, Florida judge "is under withering attack from conservatives for saying he will use Islamic law to decide if an arbitration award was correct." Used Islamic law in Florida. He's under attack. He wants to explain himself. "A Hillsborough judge under withering attack from conservatives for saying he will use Islamic law to decide if an arbitration award was correct apparently wants to explain himself. Circuit Judge Richard Nielsen took the unusual step of issuing an opinion Tuesday even though the 2nd District Court of Appeal has stayed proceedings in a lawsuit against the Islamic Education Center of Tampa filed by four ousted trustees. The opinion does not add anything that isn't already in the court file nor does it make any finding of law. But Nielsen appears to take great pains to explain the reasoning behind his controversial decision.
"The issue involves whether an arbitration award in the case by an Islamic scholar, called an a'lim, was proper. The a'lim ruled Dec. 28 that the mosque's ex-trustees were ousted improperly, a decision that, if it sticks, might wrest control of $2.2 million from the center's current leaders. The mosque got the money from the state after it used some of the mosque's land for a road project. 'From the outset of learning of the purported arbitration award, the court's concern has been whether there were ecclesiastical principles for dispute resolution involved that would compel the court to adopt the arbitration decision without considering state law,' Tuesday's opinion said. 'The court has concluded that as to the question of enforceability of the arbitrator's award the case should proceed under ecclesiastical Islamic law,'" because that's the basis on which it was agreed to.
Now, some people say that what the judge did here was just purely rule on a contract that was signed between two consenting parties. The contract that they signed had specified that disputes would be resolved according to Sharia law. They agreed to this. Both parties agreed that that's how disputes would be resolved. So the case is essentially about enforcing a contract. You could say that it had nothing to do with Islam, although that's not totally correct. Sharia law is Islam. The reason that this went back before the judge is that one of the parties was unhappy with how the arbitration worked out for him, which happens a lot in arbitration station. I saw it last night on The Good Wife. Arbitration doesn't always work out and you have to kill somebody. That's what happened on The Good Wife last night. Well, I watched it last night, it actually happened on Tuesday night. I love that show. You ever seen it? It's one of these rare TV shows that has depth. It's actually got plot depth. It's not just mindless twaddle, with a D.
At any rate, people can agree to be ruled by the Wizard of Oz in arbitration if they want to. These people agreed to be ruled by Sharia law. This was a disagreement between the trustees of a mosque about how to divvy up a windfall from the state for a road. What's funny to me about this is how they scammed the government. They got a mosque, they needed 2.2, "Oh, we'll build a road," government says, "Here's your money," essentially. A lot of different people from different faiths decide to accept arbitration based on their own religious laws all the time. In this case what's happening is that the loser is saying he didn't really agree to arbitration in the first place, and now he wants to get a do-over in front of a judge with Florida law.
____________
In the interests of Order and Method: My Schedule of Regular Posts
*Monday through Friday morning - schedules of President, VP and Secretary of State and her diplomats
*Monday through Friday afternoon - List of topics Limbaugh discussed on his program that day
*Monday through Friday througout the day - My posts on anything that I feel like talking about. At least one or two a day, sometimes more.
*Saturday through Sunday morning - An addition to my booklist of political books - covering Democrats, Republicans and other interested parties.
No comments:
Post a Comment