sharia-watch-uk-speech-24-apr-14

Launch of “Sharia Watch UK”
LSS Secretary Charlie Klendjian
House of Lords, Thursday 24 th April 2014
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you very much to Baroness Cox and Anne
Marie Waters for kindly inviting me to speak in such an awe‐inspiring building, to such a
distinguished audience, on such a depressing subject.
My name is Charlie Klendjian. I am a commercial solicitor and the Secretary of the Lawyers’
Secular Society. The LSS is a group of legal professionals and law students, religious and nonreligious,
who make no apology for being fiercely committed to secularism and to ensuring
equality before the law for people of all faiths and none.
Today, however, I am not here to speak generally about religion, or secularism, much though
the LSS has to say on these subjects. No, today I am here to speak about sharia law and only
sharia law.
Political Islam, a crucial plank of which is sharia law, presents what we can calmly describe as
“a unique set of challenges” for the 21 st century. Sharia law is perhaps the most serious
political, legal, moral and social issue we face – and when I say “we” I do not mean lawyers,
or secularists, but sadly humanity itself.
I am very pleased that this group has been set up, and with the participation of
parliamentarians, because a political response is sorely needed to what is essentially a
political threat, and a very grave one, to our way of life.
To the extent there’s any consensus on sharia law amongst our politicians at the present
time it’s a consensus, at best, of collective head‐burying in sand and at worst, a consensus of
positively encouraging and facilitating sharia law; of giving it the oxygen it craves. This
worrying trend must be reversed, and at some tempo, and I hope today might be the
beginning of that process.
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I want to focus today on the disturbing practice note on sharia law that was issued just over
a month ago now by the representative body for my profession in England and Wales, the
Law Society.
The Law Society’s practice notes – which are guidance to solicitors – are not binding, and
they do not have the force of law, but they do represent best practice for solicitors on
certain legal areas. They are significant wording, emanating from a significant body within a
significant institution of any democracy: its legal system.
I would now like to try and convey to you the gravity, and also the absurdity, of the
unenviable predicament we find ourselves in, by briefly outlining the Law Society’s puzzled
approach to what is today such an elastic principle that it has snapped and ceased to have
any substantive meaning at all. That’s right, I’m talking about “equality and diversity”, an
ideal that once had noble intentions and noble achievements but which now, increasingly,
musters in us the level of enthusiasm we tend to reserve for health and safety, or data
protection.
On 10 March 2014, on the front page of the Law Society Gazette, the Law Society’s former
president and current chair of its equality and diversity committee Lucy Scott‐Moncrief
called attention to the “woeful underuse” of women’s talent in the legal profession.
Just seventy two hours later, on 13 March 2014, the Law Society issued its practice note on
“Sharia succession rules”. That guidance contained the following wording, which I’m sure by
now will be very familiar to many of you:
“The male heirs in most cases receive double the amount inherited by a
female heir of the same class. Non‐Muslims may not inherit at all...”
And:
“…illegitimate and adopted children are not Sharia heirs.”
As I mentioned in a letter that was published in the Gazette, sharia law is not exactly girl
power and interfaith cohesion, is it?
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The president of the Law Society has justified this practice note on the grounds that we live
in a “diverse, multi‐faith, multi‐cultural society”.
Ladies and gentlemen, blink and you will have missed it: in the space of just seventy two
hours “equality and diversity” has undergone a radical branding makeover and become
“inequality and division”. The president also said: “The Law Society responded to requests
from its members” on sharia law.
It’s fair to say there has been some inaccurate reporting of the effect of the Law Society’s
guidance, whether that was due to intentionally bullish journalism and headline writing, or
just sloppiness. There has been talk, for example, of sharia law now being “enshrined” in
English law. This is legally inaccurate. The LSS, I’m pleased to say, has not slipped on these
legal banana skins. The LSS has been very clear from the outset that the law has not
changed. On this, at least, we agree with the Law Society.
So, why all the fuss?
Well the first problem, before we even venture into any discussion of discrimination, is that
the Law Society is giving its members guidance on sharia law. It is giving guidance on
theology. This is not an appropriate thing for the Law Society to be doing. The Law Society
has delved into territory that is beyond its remit because in the jurisdiction of England and
Wales sharia law only has the status of theology, and nothing more than theology. We must
remind ourselves of this.
However, by issuing a practice note on sharia law the Law Society has now given this
theology the credibility and respectability of a legal discipline within our legal system, as if it
belonged in the same family of other legal disciplines such as commercial property, mergers
and acquisitions, consumer law, residential conveyancing, litigation, or competition law.
Sharia law does not deserve the credibility and respectability of a legal discipline, and my
professional body has no right to give it that credibility and respectability.
And the second problem, as we have seen from the guidance wording I have just quoted, is
that sharia law is fundamentally discriminatory as far as English law is concerned. It is
fundamentally discriminatory to women, it is fundamentally discriminatory to non‐Muslims,
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it is fundamentally discriminatory to “illegitimate” children (and how nice to see that phrase
make a long‐awaited comeback, incidentally), and it is fundamentally discriminatory to
adopted children and children who are considered to be of a different faith. Let’s take a
moment to record a very simple and fact‐based observation here: sharia law is somewhat
different to English law.
Subject to noble statutory protections which safeguard the rights of a deceased’s
dependants, under English law a testator can generally be as mean‐spirited and politically
incorrect as he or she wants. There is no prohibition on “discrimination” in a will, and so if a
testator wants to incorporate into a will ancient religious rules which specifically deem men
more worthy than women, and Muslims more worthy than non‐Muslims, and “natural”
children more worthy than adopted children, then he or she is at liberty to do so. We call
this “testamentary freedom”, and it is an established and uncontroversial feature of our
legal system. The LSS is not challenging testamentary freedom. Testators had testamentary
freedom before this practice note and they continue to have that freedom now. Nothing has
changed there.
Well I say nothing has changed but actually it has. The Law Society, despite its protestations
to the contrary, has legitimised, normalised, sanitised and endorsed the distribution of an
estate in accordance with the fundamentally discriminatory provisions of sharia law.
Effectively it has told its members: “If you want to discriminate, this is how you go about it.
Just follow these instructions.”
The Law Society would not and it should not issue guidance on how to incorporate into a will
anti‐Semitic, homophobic, racist, or anti‐Muslim provisions, even though such provisions
would fall comfortably into the realms of the testamentary freedom our legal system allows,
and even if members specifically made “requests” for such guidance. Any competent English
lawyer instructed by a client to achieve those objectives in a will is perfectly capable of
giving effect to those wishes, and as a profession, as members of the public, we would
consider it strange, disturbing and inappropriate in the extreme for the Law Society to
specifically tell solicitors how to do that. And so it’s legitimate for us to ask at this point:
“Why on earth is the Law Society giving guidance on how to incorporate other discriminatory
provisions?” We’re also entitled to ask: “Just why are the rules of engagement for Islam so
overwhelmingly – so painfully transparently – different?”
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By legitimising, normalising, sanitising and endorsing the distribution of an estate in
accordance with the fundamentally discriminatory provisions of sharia law, the Law Society
has by extension legitimised, normalised, sanitised and endorsed sharia law more generally.
Given sharia law’s failure, on a truly magnificent scale, to uphold any acceptable standard of
human rights, this ringing endorsement of sharia law by the Law Society is deeply alarming.
As you can imagine, the Law Society’s decision to issue this guidance is a matter of
considerable concern for the LSS, because we say that a secular legal system is priceless, and
that it is essential to our way of life.
I will be taking part in a protest on behalf of the LSS against the Law Society’s decision to
issue their sharia guidance, this Monday 28 th April, outside the Law Society’s offices at
Chancery Lane at 5pm. The details are on our website. If you can, please do come along or
help us to publicise it, and I would be very grateful especially to any journalists here who
might be able to cover it in some way. The LSS was involved in the successful protest at the
end of last year against the guidance issued by Universities UK, which endorsed gender
segregation in British universities for “genuinely held religious beliefs”. This success was
thanks, in large part, to the condemnation of UUK’s guidance by the Prime Minister, the
Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove, and the Shadow Business Secretary Chuka
Umunna that was triggered by our protest. Surprisingly, but encouragingly, this bipartisan
condemnation was for once clear and unequivocal, with none of the awkward fence‐sitting
and bet‐hedging we have sadly become so accustomed to expect from our politicians on
questions of Islam. So there does seem to be some political appetite, and willingness, for
progress here. We need to get the scandal of the Law Society’s guidance on the desk of
senior politicians, like we did with Universities UK.
The Law Society has taken a typically lawyerly approach to the criticism it has faced, by
repeatedly saying, correctly, that the law hasn’t changed, and in fact sneeringly calling its
critics “ill informed”. But the Law Society misses the point, for this reason. There is no law in
this jurisdiction saying we are not allowed to depict Mohammed, but as we all know
newspapers and TV stations don’t generally do it. It’s not, how shall we say, “the done
thing”. Similarly, there is no law which magically suspends the legal rights of women the
moment they step foot into a sharia council, but we know sharia councils are often legal
black holes. In the same way, just because the Law Society’s guidance has not changed the
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law, it does not follow that we should not be concerned about it. We should be very
concerned about it.
The Law Society has focused merely on what the law is and it has completely failed to see
the bigger picture. This is a skill at which technocratic, bureaucratic, “dark room” lawyers
often excel. Any first year student of law will happily recite to you the phrase: “Justice
mustn’t just be done, it must be seen to be done”. By that same token, I say: “English law
mustn’t just have primacy over sharia law, it must be seen to have primacy over sharia law”.
The Law Society’s most unwelcome and unhelpful contribution to this epic debate of our age
has profoundly disrupted the perception of English law’s primacy. The Law Society’s
guidance has taken the legal profession towards a tipping point. We can now tip one of two
ways. Either we tip towards formally allowing sharia law into our legal system, or we tip
towards shining a bright light on sharia law’s unwelcome advances and we start to reverse
its inroads. I very much hope it’s the latter.
I will even go so far as to say that the Law Society has been constitutionally reckless with our
legal system. As one of the key actors – and gatekeepers – of our legal system it has done its
very best to undermine that legal system. It has received a knock on the door from sharia
law and instead of saying “No thank you”, it has welcomed it in with the endearing
enthusiasm of a playful lapdog and given it a shiny Law Society stamp of approval. And
although sharia law is still not formally a part of our legal system, we might ask ourselves the
following question: “In issuing this practice note, has the Law Society made it more likely or
less likely that sharia law will one day be formally incorporated into our legal system?” I
suggest the Law Society has made it more likely.
Through the work of Baroness Cox and Anne Marie Waters, and many other fine individuals,
we have seen the mayhem that sharia law is already creating in our jurisdiction – and
remember, this is when it has the status of theology. We know that women and children
routinely have their fundamental legal rights violated in sharia councils, be it because of
duress, because of an inequality of bargaining power, or because of a simple ignorance of
their rights under English law. And so we can ask another question: “If this is the mayhem
created when sharia law has the status of theology, dare we imagine what kind of mayhem it
might create as law?”
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Although it is the position that a sharia will that is incompatible with English law can be
challenged under English law, how likely do we think such a challenge would be, in all
honesty? Given all we know about the operation of sharia councils, for example, and how
they routinely and shamefully prevent the normal exercise and enforcement of fundamental
legal rights, it’s reasonable to assume that aggrieved beneficiaries under a sharia will might
feel enormous pressure not to challenge its legal validity. So when we say a sharia will must
comply with English law we must also add the killer footnote: “but it doesn’t really matter if
it doesn’t comply.”
Make no mistake, if sharia law ever were to formally become part of our legal system it
would not exit that legal system quietly. Indeed, this country might even require some form
of civil disorder or something akin to a violent revolution to remove sharia law from our legal
system. Once sharia law is formally within our legal system there will follow a process of
contagion to other areas of our legal system. This is as inevitable as day following night. It
will spread to the criminal law. And to those who dismiss these fears as pie‐in‐the‐sky,
tabloid scare‐mongering, or “ill informed”, and who say, “Charlie, this could never happen,
you’re just being silly now”, I say this: “I didn’t think the Law Society would issue Sharia
guidance on how to discriminate against women and non‐Muslims. Did you?”
And now for some good news.
As I said at the beginning, I am very pleased this group has been launched. It represents a
resistance. In fact the solution to this problem is not a difficult one. It is a simple one, and it
is this. It is for everyone – especially our politicians, public figures and the media – to discuss
Islam in the most candid and honest manner possible, and to faithfully observe, record and
comment on the increasingly non‐benign influence Islam is having on our way of life. We
have no tyrannical government to overthrow, no draconian laws to remove from our statute
books, and no revolutionary new laws to pass – though Baroness Cox’s arbitration and
mediation bill would be a very welcome statutory addition. We simply need to enforce
existing laws, and exercise existing rights – most crucially free speech – and we must apply
the same quality of debate, scrutiny, scepticism and indeed ridicule to Islam as we would to
any other religion and to any other subject that features in our public discourse, let alone
one that features so heavily.
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So the solution is a simple one in technical terms, but the willingness to apply that solution
must be much, much more forthcoming. Because really, to finish, we have a very simple
choice before us. We can either fight this battle now, with our words, or we can leave it to
the generation that follows to fight it with their blood. They will not thank us for deferring
this task to them, and history will be rather unkind to us.
Thank you once again to Baroness Cox and Anne Marie for inviting me to speak, and I look
forward to contributing further to this exciting venture in any way I possibly can.
Thank you very much.
Website: lawyerssecularsociety.wordpress.com
Twitter: @LawSecSoc
Email: lawsecsoc@yahoo.co.uk
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