Judge allowed to sit on sharia court set up by Hebdo protest cleric

From the Telegraph. Another reason why the government were so keen to jettison my generation of old school officials in favour of  malleable youngsters recruited in accordance with ‘diversity’ principles.

A crown court judge has been allowed to rule on sharia cases, in the first case of its kind.

District Judge Shamim Qureshi, who sits at Bristol Crown Court, received permission from the Judicial Office to double as “presiding judge” at the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT). The MAT was established in 2007 by a hardline cleric, Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, who led an anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstration after 11 of the magazine’s staff were murdered by terrorists.

Unlike most sharia councils and tribunals, MAT has legal status under the 1996 Arbitration Act and its rulings can be enforced by the courts.

About four-fifths of its work is family and matrimonial disputes, where it has on occasions issued rulings that discriminate against women. In an inheritance dispute between three sisters and two brothers, the tribunal gave the men double their sisters’ inheritance.

MAT has handled cases of domestic violence in which female victims were persuaded to withdraw complaints to the police and pursue “reconciliation” with their husbands instead. The men were only told to take anger management courses. It also offers Islamic divorces, but they are more difficult for women to obtain than for men. 

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is due to launch an independent review into sharia courts and councils amid concerns that a “parallel” justice system is developing in Britain. There are particular concerns that the courts are discriminatory towards women.

Judge Qureshi has overseen MAT, which is based in Nuneaton, Warks, and has four other branches. It states that it serves Muslims “seeking to resolve disputes in accordance with Islamic sacred law”. 

Sheikh Siddiqi led a thousand-strong, gender-segregated march in protest at Charlie Hebdo’s use of images of Mohammed last year, a month after 11 of the magazine’s staff were murdered. Sheikh Siddiqi told the rally: “If you want to be called a moderate Muslim, they [British society] say you should say some aspects [of the Koran] need to be modernised. It is not the Koran that needs modernising, it is your society.”

There are no suggestions that Judge Qureshi, who has been a judge since 2004, has been involved in any controversial sharia tribunal decisions. However, he caused controversy in March last year after convicting a Christian preacher of a public order offence for quoting an Old Testament passage against homosexuality.

He fined Mike Overd £200 and threatened to jail him unless he paid £250 compensation to a man offended by the remarks. The conviction was quashed on appeal last month. 

Mr Overd has always insisted he never read the offending words and said he was “amazed that the judge sees it as his role to dictate which parts of the Bible can and can’t be preached”. 

A spokesman for the Judicial Office said Judge Qureshi had received permission for his sharia work, which was done on a voluntary basis. MAT could not be contacted for comment.