BRITAIN:British prime minister Gordon Brown has rejected the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that the adoption of some aspects of Sharia law may be "unavoidable" if the UK is to maintain social cohesion. Frank Millar, London Editor, reports.
Ahead of a major speech on the subject last night, Dr Rowan Williams told the BBC: "Nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states."
However, the archbishop believed the European Court of Human Rights was wrong "in viewing Sharia as a single entity".
Dr Williams urged the incorporation of Sharia-compliant proceedings, for example, for the resolution of financial disputes or marital issues. He said: "It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of Sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it's not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.
"We already have in this country a number of situations in which the internal law of religious communities is recognised by the law of the land as justifying conscientious objections in certain circumstances."
While "the principle that there is one law for everybody is an important pillar", Dr Williams said it was not possible to ignore that people also had religious and cultural loyalties.
"There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law," he said.
Mr Brown's spokesman, however, said the prime minister believed "British laws should be based on British values" and that Sharia law could never be used as a justification for committing a breach of English law or applied in civil cases.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg agreed, saying: "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.
"There is a huge difference between respecting peoples' rights to follow their own beliefs and allowing them to excuse themselves from the rule of law."
Dr Williams's comments will revive the debate about multiculturalism, just weeks after the Bishop of Rochester claimed non-Muslims faced effective "no-go areas" in some parts of Britain and that some of the government's multicultural policies were divisive.
Dr Williams's intervention in the debate also coincided with a row sparked by the decision of the Home Office to deny a visa to the controversial Egyptian-born cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi.