Sharia law could have UK role, says lord chief justice

· Phillips says Islamic law could benefit society
· He calls for system to govern marriages

• Patrick Wintour and Riazat Butt
• The Guardian, Friday July 4, 2008

Britain's most senior judge reopened one of the most highly charged debates in Britain last night when he said he was willing to see sharia law operate in the country, so long as it did not conflict with the laws of England and Wales, or lead to the imposition of severe physical punishments.

The remarks by the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, in a speech to the London Muslim Council yesterday, had a conscious echo of the comments made by the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in February who argued that sharia law could sometimes be used in Britain.

The archbishop, who suggested "sharia law was rooted in the sense of doing God's will in the ordinary things of law", was later forced to retract the statement.

Phillips insisted last night there was "widespread misunderstanding" of the nature of sharia law, and argued: "There is no reason why sharia principles, or any other religious code, should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution [with the understanding] ... that any sanctions for a failure to comply with the agreed terms of mediation would be drawn from the Laws of England and Wales."

He also suggested sharia principles should be applied to marriage arrangements.

Less controversially, Phillips backed the creation of specialist financial products and services which comply with sharia principles, something the UK Treasury has acknowledged since 2002.

The lord chief justice, in an address broadly designed to reassure the Muslim community that it was treated equally under British law, stressed that he was not countenancing "any notion of sharia courts operating in this country and seeking to impose such punishments".

He said: "There can be no question of such courts sitting in this country, or such sanctions being applied here.

"So far as the law is concerned, those who live in this country are governed by English and Welsh law and subject to the jurisdiction of the English and Welsh courts."

In the most controversial section, Phillips said: " It was not very radical to advocate embracing sharia law in the context of family disputes, for example, and our system already goes a long way towards accommodating the archbishop's suggestion.

Continued . . .