Archbishop fends off Sharia criticism

|PIC1|The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, fought off fierce criticism on Friday over comments he made appearing to support the introduction of Sharia law.

A statement on Dr Williams' website insisted that the Archbishop had made no proposals for sharia and "certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law".

The Archbishop faced a backlash after an interview with the BBC on Thursday in which he indicated that the introduction of some aspects of Sharia law in socially and religiously plural Britain were "unavoidable".

"Certain conditions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system," he said in the interviewer.

Later on Thursday, the Archbishop delivered a lecture on 'Civil and Religious Law in England' as part of the Temple Festival, in which he explored some of the problems associated with a secular legal framework.

"We have to think a little harder about the role and rule of law in a plural society of overlapping identities," he said.

"The rule of law is thus not the enshrining of priority for the universal/abstract dimension of social existence but the establishing of a space accessible to everyone in which it is possible to affirm and defend a commitment to human dignity".

He continued, "One of the most frequently noted problems in the law in this area is the reluctance of a dominant rights-based philosophy to acknowledge the liberty of conscientious opting-out from collaboration in procedures or practices that are in tension with the demands of particular religious groups: the assumption, in rather misleading shorthand, that if a right or liberty is granted there is a corresponding duty upon every individual to 'activate' this whenever called upon."

Clarifying his comments on Friday, the statement from Lambeth Palace stressed that the Archbishop was not suggesting the introduction of parallel legal jurisdictions, "but exploring ways in which reasonable accommodation might be made within existing arrangements for religious conscience".

The statement added that the Archbishop's core aim was to "tease out some of the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state", using Sharia as an example.

The Government and other politicians expressed their disagreement with the Archbishop's comments on Thursday, Gordon Brown's spokesman stressing that the Prime Minister believes "British laws should be based on British values".

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham joined the chorus of condemnation, saying, "You cannot run two systems of law alongside each other. That would be a recipe for chaos."

Criticism also came in from other parties. The Conservative Community Cohesion Minister Baroness Warsi told the BBC, "Dr Williams seems to be suggesting that there should be two systems of law, running alongside each other, almost parallel, and for people to be offered the choice of opting into one or the other. That is unacceptable."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg agreed that Britain should not set up different laws for different people.

"Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another," he said.