The Legal Research Society

A few days ago I commented on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s proposal to have elements of Islamic law coexisting with the English legal system. I questioned the extent to which it would be possible for English law to recognise some facets of Islamic family law. An article on Conflictoflaws.net sheds further light on the matter. Gilles Cuniberti explains how the Cour de Cassation in France has refused to recognise a number of Algerian and Moroccan divorces. He describes the factual background as follows: The facts of the cases are almost invariably the same. The couple was of Algerian (or Moroccan) origin. They were sometimes born there, or even had got married there. They then emigrated to France, where they have been living ever since. They sometimes acquired French citizenship. It seems that it is normally the wife who wants the divorce. She therefore decides to sue, in France. But the husband then travels to Algeria or Morocco and gets an islamic divorce...

I take no credit, and, I hope, no blame, for the title of this post. Yesterday's lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury titled 'Islam in English Law: Civil and Religious Law in England' has met with a deafening outcry, including newspaper headlines screaming ' Victory for Terrorism ' and columnists asking ' Has the Archbishop Gone Bonkers? ' The newspapers might leave one with the impression that the Archbishop wants us all to live under Muslim law, including Muslim criminal law. On reading the lecture (available here ) one wonders if all the fuss stems from the demonization of Islam, as opposed to the actual content of the lecture. The Archbishop was in fact making the case for the coexistence of secular and religious legal systems in the civil sphere. While I tend to disagree with the proposition that we should regress to a state in which religion enters the public sphere to a greater extent than by informing societal norms, I must admit that the Arch...