One Law for All

16 September 2005



Canada’s Ontario Province to Ban Religious Family Tribunals

Since 1991, citizens of Ontario, Canada, have been able to use Catholic or Jewish tribunals to settle family law matters. Now that certain Muslim residents of the province want to use Islamic law to settle similar issues, Premier Dalton McGuinty has said he wants to ban them all. He said, “There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.” Amen.

The family law matters that these bodies address are the most personal and messy kinds of conflicts. And for this reason, religious teachings do have something to offer in the way people resolve them. Since religion at its best offers a moral code of behavior, it can be a decent source of reconciliation.

The B'nai Brith said through its executive vice president Frank Dimant, “In the case of the rabbinical courts, they have functioned for hundreds of years in Ontario, and there have been no issues, no complaints. And now to merely outlaw them as having any standing before the law because of internal differences of opinion in the Muslim community is simply unfair.” Meanwhile, the president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Mohamed Elmasry, said, “It is ignorance which has given sharia a bad name, especially in the treatment of women.” His group claims sharia tribunals are faster and cheaper than civil courts and provider a “healing factor into many family disputes.”

Both are fine defenses, but neither is sufficient. The fundamental belief in any democracy is the equality of the citizenry. Since the Jewish, Catholic and Islamic laws are different in places (e.g., divorce and inheritance), legally binding people to various codes based on their religious affiliation creates variation as to one’s legal status. Indeed, one could see how people might convert to find a more appealing venue for a dispute – shopping the court system is well-known in most federal systems, including Canada’s.

This is not to say that religious bodies will be abolished. While Premier McGuinty’s Liberal Government has to submit the legislation, he is unlikely to prohibit mediation and arbitration voluntarily entered into by various parties. What he is going to do is establish the primacy of the province’s courts in civil matters by constitutional means. As Jesus of Nazareth instructed, “Render unto Caesar what is due Caesar” – such as the right and power to decide what the law is and how it shall apply to everyone equally.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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