- The Australian
- 12:00AM September 5, 2016
Two Sydney children have been placed into foster care and their 17-year-old brother reluctantly permitted to live with his violent father after their Lebanese-born mother cited “Islamic law” as the reason she was unable to care for them.
In the case highlighting how Australian courts are increasingly having to deal with the fallout from arrangements struck under Islamic, or sharia, law the mother argued religious law prevented her children living with her because her new husband should not be burdened with the responsibility for caring for them.
Sharia law was also invoked in a matter heard in November by the District Court of South Australia, where disagreement over an alleged loan was complicated by the existence of two contracts; one in English referring to a sum of $70,000 plus interest, another handwritten in Farsi that made no mention of interest.
The court heard evidence that under Islamic law lending money in return for interest was forbidden and the second document had been drafted for “religious reasons” to hide the fact interest was being charged.
According to Flinders University academic Hossein Esmaeili, an expert in Islamic and Middle Eastern law, many Australian Muslims distrust the secular legal system, preferring traditional religious oversight of their personal and business affairs.
In a recent paper published in the
Flinders Law Journal, Dr Esmaeili argues that there is significant evidence the broad principles of sharia are already being practised covertly by Muslims in Australia.
“While many Muslims in Australia do not support the introduction of sharia law … many follow certain sharia legal principles as part of their religious observances,” he writes.
“These include matters which ordinarily are legal issues in Australia such as inheritance law, wills, paying special taxes, marriage and divorce, and matters relating to personal property, banking and finance.”
