Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2017-01-27
Topic: Civil Rights
David John Maclean (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it is a pleasure to support the noble Baroness in this very important Bill. I too pay tribute to her persistence in keeping these gross injustices perpetrated against women to the fore. She is the undoubted expert in this area and I urge the Government to implement this Bill as soon as possible. In my opinion, the measures needed to prevent women being treated as chattel go well beyond this modest Bill, but I accept her judgment that the changes she proposes are so reasonable that no fair-minded person, or man or Government, should sensibly oppose them I take the view that in commercial transactions, businesses, companies and individuals who are equal can agree any arbitration system that they wish. We know that our English commercial courts are regarded as the finest in the world and are usually the place designated in contracts for dispute resolution. Other contracts may stipulate arbitrators from professional institutes. The key point is that where parties are equals, they can select any system for civil dispute resolution that they like, so long as it is not in breach of a country’s civil or criminal law. I do not pretend for one second to understand the theory of how sharia law should work. But I have read the case studies circulated by the noble Baroness and I am appalled at what is happening in our country today. It is clear that Muslim women are not being treated as equals. I have not heard one word to say that the case studies circulated by the noble Baroness are false or exaggerated, and we can assume that these are not just 30 isolated instances but rather the norm, when male religious leaders ignore national law and decide cases according to their interpretation of religious law Here I think we have to judge matters not on what a highly educated, fair imam implementing proper principles from the Koran should in theory do, but on what happens in reality in dozens of sharia courts where less-well-educated and biased judges are imposing their bigoted judgments on women who have no ability to fight back. Where is the justice in all those cases where a woman complains about being repeatedly beaten and the sharia court takes the man’s word for it but asks the woman to produce two witnesses? Where is the justice when a judge laughs at a woman and says, "If he beats you, why did you marry him in the first place?", or tells a woman that he does not want to hear her side of the story, only the man’s? Where is the justice in that wicked pronouncement that, "the husband was entitled to beat her because she was disobedient" The problem we have in this country, and possibly in our parliamentary bubble, is that we respect religious systems of marriage and divorce. Of course people should have the right to go through a form of religious divorce, if they want to. However, we may have made the mistake of assuming that all religious divorces treat women as fairly as they are treated in a UK civil divorce, and that is simply not the case. Any UK divorce judge who behaved in the way or said the things that some sharia judges have would be removed within 24 hours, never allowed into a courtroom again and possibly prosecuted for hate speech—and rightly so. We must remove the blinkers from our eyes that sharia divorces are equal to UK civil divorces. They are not, and women are being ruthlessly discriminated against This Bill is modest and seeks to tackle some of the injustices. However, I hope that the Government review of sharia law will go much further. I hope we will see a recommendation that no sharia religious divorces will be valid unless, in every case, a civil court also pronounces on it. That is not part of this Bill, but it is a very serious problem that will have to be addressed sooner rather than later Time does not permit me, so I have deleted from my speech all the paragraphs on police failure to act on the actions of Muslim women. Largely, that is because the police do not like to get involved in domestic disputes. Unfortunately, because of that, Muslim women are suffering a great injustice I conclude, if I may, by making a practical suggestion to your Lordships. I suspect that after the next Loyal Address, the House of Commons will have one major Bill with which to deal—the so-called great repeal Bill. This House may have very little to do and we may have time on our hands. I suggest to all parties and all groups that we gang up and present the Leader with a suggestion: that this Bill, or one very like it, should be government legislation, starting in this House after the next Loyal Address, when your Lordships will have ample time to get it perfectly correct. I believe that my noble friend’s Bill is absolutely meritorious in its own right and deserves to succeed. The Government should implement it as soon as possible or, if not, take it over as government legislation. Let us get it through this House.