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Peer says she will listen to Board warning over Bill to control religious courts
April 19, 2016 13:51
A campaigner for new laws to regulate religious courts says she is willing to take account of concerns about their impact on Batei Din.
Cross-bench peer Baroness Cox wants to force religious tribunals to comply with equality laws primarily in order to protect Muslim women from discrimination.
But the Board of Deputies has warned that this could have a knock-on effect on rabbinic courts, for example preventing them handling issues to do with marital break-up.
Her private members’ Bill, introduced into the Lords, was due to receive a second reading in the Commons on Friday but is highly unlikely to because of her lack of time. That means she will have to re-introduce the Bill into the Lords in the next session of Parliament after May.
Baroness Cox said that her Bill “seeks to address problems arising from gender discrimination in arbitration proceedings, informal mediations or pseudo-courts”.
Its main purpose related “to the need of many Muslim women to know their rights under English law and how to access those rights.”
But she added that “I and my colleagues have also listened carefully to criticisms, reservations and suggestions for improvement, including concerns of the Jewish community. We will take these into account during the submission of a revised Bill for the next parliamentary session.”
The London Beth Din has argued, however, that the Bill was unnecessary for religious courts such as Batei Din operating under existing arbitration rules.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said that it took the concerns raised by Baroness Cox’s bill seriously and was “absolutely committed to promoting women’s rights and access to justice”.
But the government would make no decision on any action until it had concluded its review of Islamic sharia courts.
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