Commentary

Sharia, Religious Tribunals and the Separation of Church and State

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced last month that his government would ban all religious arbitration courts and tribunals operating in the province. His announcement came following growing pressure to prevent the establishment of Islamic religious tribunals which would rule on certain questions based on the principles of sharia, a system of Islamic law.

His announcement means the Jewish religious tribunals already operating in the province will no longer have any authority and also means that no other religious groups in the province will be able to establish such bodies with state sanction.

Any attempt to disallow Sharia tribunals while Jewish tribunals continued to operate would have been blatantly discrimantory, especially on the basis that Islamic law is more oppressive of women, which some people tried to argue. Orthodox Jewish tribunals throughout the world are well known for their disdain for women; the recent documentary Sentenced to Marriage, by an Israeli-Canadian filmaker, highlights how religious tribunals routinely exploit women by forcing them to pay huge ransoms to receive religious divorces from abusive husbands, for example.

McGuinty’s decision on religious tribunals is especially timely given that the principle of the seperation of church and state is currently under attack throughout North America.

Several U.S. states are currently attempting to reintroduce or already have started the teaching of creationism in public schools, under its new, modern label, “intelligent design”, with President George Bush lending support to the cause. Recently, a Florida court ruled that a pharmacist was within his right to refuse to fill birthcontrol prescriptions for women because, as an evangelical Christian, he was opposed to birth control, a ruling that was supported by Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

These two examples are both despite the Establishment Clause to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, penned by founding father Thomas Jefferson, which prohibits Congress from passing any laws in regards to the establishment of religion. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently interpreted this clause to mean, as Jefferson himself wrote at the time, that there must be a “wall of separation” between religion and the state.

In Canada, under the guise of promoting multiculturalism and tolerance, there has been similar blurring of the separation between church and state. Several provinces, instead of abolishing existing funding for religious school boards have instead expanded funding to different religious groups. In fact, funding for private religious schools in many provinces, including Manitoba, has increased over the past two decades, while funding of the public school system has either stagnated or been cut back. Furthermore, while funding for culture has been reduced steadily since the mid-1980s, money to support different religious festivals and pageants has grown steadily.

McGuinty’s decision on religious tribunals in Ontario may well be fuelled by anti-Islamic feelings, as supporters of Sharia have argued. However, even if McGuinty’s motives may be suspect, this does not mean that the demand for Sharia law is a just demand. The separation of church and state is a basic principle of democracy. To the limited extent that the Ontario government’s decision upholds this principle, it is a positive decision.

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