Ontario turns down sharia law

2005-09-12 08:48

Toronto - The premier of Ontario nixed plans on Sunday to make Canada's largest province the first in the West to introduce sharia law to settle family disputes, after widespread protests locally and abroad.

"The government has decided there should be no sharia law in Ontario," said a spokesperson for premier Dalton McGuinty.

"After studying the issue, the government decided the debate had gone on long enough," the senior official said, citing comments McGuinty made to local media.

An official report in December by former Ontario attorney general Marion Boyd said Muslims should have recourse to arbitration tribunals using religious law, such as those that already exist for Christians and Jews.

But opponents, including notable Canadians Margaret Atwood, June Callwood and Shirley Douglas, said its introduction would threaten the country's secular legal tradition and risked curtailing women's rights.

Protesting for women's rights

Critics organised rallies in major Canadian cities including Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa to protest the tribunals, as well as in Paris, London and Vienna.

They argued women were not equally protected in Islamic law and feared that Muslim women might be forced to waive their rights under Canadian law.

Ontario will introduce "as soon as possible" in the coming months a law banning all religious arbitration, the official said.

"There should be one law for all Ontarians and religious arbitration threatens that principle," the official said.

Quebec's parliament in May unanimously adopted a resolution opposing the implementation of Islamic tribunals either in the province or elsewhere in Canada, in an attempt to distance itself from the official Ontario report.

Boyd's report included 46 recommendations, several designed to ensure that women could not be forced to enter religious arbitration, for instance in the case of a divorce.

She said mediators should screen each partner before arbitration to ensure the process was not the product of domestic violence or intimidation.

According to the latest census in 2001, some 600 000 Muslims live in Canada.

- AFP