Butler-Sloss calls for courts to recognise Sharia divorces
13/01/2009
The former head of the Family Division and one of the countries most senior legal figures, Baroness Butler-Sloss has called for judges to stop granting divorces to separating Muslim couples unless they had already been through a religious divorce. This would follow the same procedure applied to Jewish couples seeking divorce.
Under Islamic law only men have the power to end marriages and she is urging the move to end the ?injustice? of women being unable to remarry if their husband refuses to grant divorce.
In a debate she chaired Lady Butler-Sloss, Britain?s first female Appeal Court Judge called for change so that a decree absolute could not be issued by a civil court until evidence had been obtained of a Sharia divorce.
