Obvious mistakes

Sometimes you see a set of circumstances evolve that you just know will end in tears, invariably these things involve the same set of attributes. First you have some kind of minority, then some dubious cultural or societal reason for treating the minority differently, pretty soon you have two societies and two sets of rules and someone always loses out. I fear this is already happening in our society right now around the concept of Sharia councils. Many Muslims (claim) to want to have Islamic arbitration for domestic and other family oriented disputes, independent from the normal UK justice system. Whilst this may seem a very "progressive" and politically correct thing to allow, recent investigations into such councils are uncovering a large number of complaints. Particularly Women seem to be protesting in large numbers that the councils (run by men) discriminate against them. This is particularly problematic when Women are trying to escape abusive relationships.

Personally I find the concept of "Islamic justice" as alien and illogical as "Islamic Chemistry". As the photograph above shows, I believe that true justice is blind. Faith, ethnicity, wealth or cultural background should have no bearing on when and how justice is sought or received. Clearly, no justice system is perfect, but if useful measures of any system are attributes like fairness, proportionality, balance and accessibility then I can confidently assert that the UK justice system scores much higher than any "Islamic" kangaroo-court; based as it has to be on a subjective and unfalsifiable set of irrational premises. Basing a legal or Governmental system on any single religion or sect is a flawed (long-debunked) idea, how can something as complex as justice in the 21st century be something that's exclusively "interpreted" by so called "scholars" who've only read one (ancient) book and have no more skill or experience in law, sociology or any relevant discipline than a 12 year old child?

It's time we knocked these so called councils on the head, they're clearly harmful to many people (especially vulnerable Women) now and can only serve to provide a useful purchase point for those seeking to divide our society even further in the future.