No Sharia Law

According to the Toronto Star (registration required)Premier McGuinty, has finally stopped dithering and come to his senses and done the only sensible thing which is to repel the 1992 Arbitration Act and banned all religious tribunals in the family and civil court systems.

Ontario will not become the first Western jurisdiction to allow the use of a set of centuries’ old religious rules called Sharia law to settle Muslim family disputes, and will ban all religious arbitrations in the province, Premier Dalton McGuinty told The Canadian Press on Sunday.

In a telephone interview with the national news agency, McGuinty announced his government would move quickly to outlaw existing religious tribunals used for years by Christians and Jews under Ontario’s Arbitration Act. “I’ve come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough,” he said. “There will be no Sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.”

McGuinty said religious arbitrations “threaten our common ground,” and promised his Liberal government would introduce legislation “as soon as possible” to outlaw them in Ontario. “Ontarians will always have the right to seek advice from anyone in matters of family law, including religious advice,” he said. ``But no longer will religious arbitration be deciding matters of family law.”

I am no lover of the McGuinty nor the Liberal party but McGuinty took the only course available to him if Ontarians were to uphold the principle of equality before the law for all.

Even once the act is repelled there is nothing to stop individuals from turning to a religious mediator to settle disputes and presenting the Ontario court Justices with a religiously negotiated settlement but there will be no official governmental standing for religious tribunals. It was shortsighted of the NDP Rae government to introduce this piece of legislation in the first place. No doubt it was thought of as a good idea at the time and the Rae’s government meant well. But bad law always means well.