Will use injunction to stop enactment

Re Sharia tribunals and human rights Editorial, Sept. 8. Your excellent editorial misses a key aspect of the debate surrounding sharia law. As a Muslim woman who has lived under sharia and tasted its oppressive implementation, I can assure you it is not just women who will suffer. All of society is disrupted when we allow the clergy to exercise control over vulnerable and marginalized minorities.

However, the issue is not simply one of women’s rights and the government’s need to provide safeguards. It has also to do with the privatization of the judicial system. Under Marion Boyd’s recommendations, the Ontario family law courts are going to be substituted for private, for- profit, ‘ judges’ for hire. To make matters worse, these private- sector judges will not be judges the way we know them. They won’t even be lawyers. They will be simply arbitrators, with little or no background in Canadian law, who will invoke divine laws to deliver justice — all for a neat $200 an hour The Muslim Canadian Congress believes that the sub- contracting of family law to the religious private sector is unconstitutional. We will seek an injunction through our courts to stop the implementation of this absurdity. We believe the government is playing ‘ multicultural’ politics in a bid to appease the clergy and dip into rich, immigrant vote banks. Niaz Salimi, President, Muslim Canadian Congress, Toronto