I'm so tired of these people

[SpencerH]

From the NYT (admittedly a liberal rag but occasionally they also report the news)

A 75-year-old widow living in Saudi Arabia has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in jail for mingling with two young men who are not close relatives, her lawyer said Monday. The newspaper Al Watan said the woman, Khamisa Sawadi, met with two 24-year-old men in April after she asked them to bring five loaves of bread to her home. The two men, her nephew and his business partner, were arrested by the religious police after delivering the bread, the newspaper said. They were also sentenced to lashes and imprisonment. The verdict against Ms. Sawadi, a Syrian who was married to a Saudi, also orders her deportation after her sentence is served. Her lawyer said he would appeal.

I cant wait for the response in Britain when such punishments are meted out under the sharia courts there

[Blaupanzer]

A nephew is NOT a close relative??

[Lorizael]

You're damn right a nephew is not a close relative. I'm tired of being forced to mingle with my extended family. Sharia law.

[Arrian]

I thought that the Sharia courts in Britain are prevented from making rulings that directly contradict English law? My memory on this is a little vague, I admit, but I thought we had a thread about this.

Ye English, speak up.

-Arrian

[SpencerH]

That may be true now but how long until they take the next step. The fact that they have been made legal in Britain at all is ludicrous.

[SpencerH]

A nephew is NOT a close relative??

I couldnt find the full story, he wasnt actually a blood nephew. She called him "nephew" because she claimed she had breast fed him, which would make him a family member.

[SlowwHand]

Ah, the benefits of being from an enlightened society such as Saudi Arabia.

[Japher]

Why does she even have an attorney?

[SlowwHand]

To prevent her getting 41 lashes.

[BeBMan]

This would never be legal within the EU.

[SlowwHand]

Gee, you don't think?

[Darius871]

I cant wait for the response in Britain when such punishments are meted out under the sharia courts there

Eh, which part of "provided they do not come into conflict with English law. There is no question about that. … English law will always remain supreme, and religious councils subservient to it,” “as long as punishments - and divorce rulings - complied with the law of the land," etc. don't you understand?

The fact that they have been made legal in Britain at all is ludicrous.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but they are equally legal in the U.S. Courts have been deferentially rubber-stamping Beth Din arbitrations for decades, just like how the law routinely (and by firm statutory mandate) recognizes any secular arbitrations that don't blatantly violate positive law.

The only reason we haven't seen many publicized judicial enforcements of Sharia arbitrations is because demographically speaking the U.S. Muslim population is much smaller and more dispersed than that of the U.K., meaning there aren't dense enough Muslim communities for Sharia courts to emerge and thrive in the way that Beth Din courts have thrived in the NYC area's concentrated Jewish population, but legally speaking religious arbitrations are already presumed enforceable in this country. In fact, refusing to enforce a Sharia arbitration on the same terms with which we already enforce Beth Din and Christian conciliation decrees would violate the Equal Protection Clause.

[snoopy369]

True, but again so long as they don't violate positive law. 40 lashes for this sort of thing would be objected to as c+u, if not as plain battery by the Sharia court...

[Arrian]

Darius

-Arrian

[Darius871]

True, but again so long as they don't violate positive law. 40 lashes for this sort of thing would be objected to as c+u, if not as plain battery by the Sharia court...

Precisely my point. There isn't a single damned thing controversial or even anomalous about the developments in the U.K. because brutality like that would be immediately invalidated, unless one buys into an absurd slippery-slope fallacy with no basis in law or fact. In fact, the U.K.’s requirement of prima facie consistency with British laws is actually more restrictive toward religious arbitrations than the U.S.' presumption of enforceability surmountable only by the very high “totally irrational” or “manifest disregard [for positive law]” burdens a challenger must satisfy to get a Beth Din decree vacated. If anyone's further down the slippery slope it's us, not Britain.