Texas the Latest State to Ban Sharia, Foreign Laws from Domestic Courts,
by Quin Hillyer, Liberty Headlines
With passage of a law protecting
American families from imposition of foreign-law doctrines in state courts,
Texas this week became the 11th state to ensure that only
American laws will apply in American domestic courts.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday
signed the Texas Foreign Law Procedural Protection Act – a slightly
slimmed-down version of similar laws either passed or under consideration
across the country. Often dubbed “anti-sharia” laws, these “American Laws for
American Courts” (ALAC) efforts would protect against judges imposing any foreign
doctrine – not just sharia – which violates American constitutional rights.
Most such conflicts of legal
doctrine occur in family-law disputes – child custody battles, for example –
where at least one of the parties claims to be guided by foreign cultural or
legal practices. The Texas law, in fact, is narrowly tailored specifically to
cover foreign child custody judgments and child custody arbitrations, rather
than applying more broadly.
But as sharia doctrines – female
subservience and the like – are most often at issue in just these sorts of
court battles, the Texas law is still seen by its advocates as a major advance,
even if not fully following the model of other ALAC laws.
Earlier this year, Arkansas had
become the 10th state to adopt ALAC protections, joining
Tennessee, Louisiana, Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Washington. (South Dakota and Florida also have laws that are
somewhat similar, but not truly ALAC, according to ALAC’s main national
sponsors.)
The most prominent organization
pushing ALAC bills, the
Center for Security Policy, produced a 2015
study called “Shariah in American Courts: The Expanding Incursion of Islamic
Law in the U.S. Legal System.” CSP reported 146 cases in 32 states in which a
party to litigation attempted to have the matter resolved by applying sharia,
rather than the statutes of the state in question – and more than two dozen
cases where judges either at the trial or appellate level actually ruled sharia
trumped U.S. statutes. The CSP web site says that such rulings “have often
resulted in a denial of equal protection to American Muslim women or children
seeking justice in American courts.”
“We’ve been working on this issue in
Texas since 2011 – and they have sessions only every other year, so if we
hadn’t won this time, we would have had to wait two more years,” said Chris
Holton, CSP’s vice president for outreach, in an interview with Liberty
Headlines. “So we’re thrilled.”
In addition to the ALAC laws passed
this year by Arkansas and Texas, two other states passed legislation aimed at
related issues this year. Tennessee passed a “Freedom to Report Terrorism Act,”
which immunizes, against lawsuits alleging discriminatory intent, individuals
who in good faith report suspected potential criminal or terrorist activity.
Florida, meanwhile, passed a law allowing greater means for recovery of civil damages
against terrorists.
The Council on American-Islamic
Relations, which some critics accuse of pushing an agenda in tune with
radicalized Islamists, strongly
opposed the Texas law and other
similar ones, saying such legislation “demonizes” their beliefs and promotes
“Islamophobia.” In printed material, CSP responds that its laws protect the
rights of Muslims, too, and that the laws are religiously neutral.
Also, it says the model ALAC law
“specifically says that the law cannot detract from the right to free exercise
of religion, which would include religious courts like Jewish Bet Din or
Catholic ecclesiastical courts; and it states that the law would not interfere
with compliance with international treaties the U.S. has signed.” Outside of Christian publications
and some coverage in Texas, the Lone Star State’s adoption of an ALAC law has
received scant media attention.
No comments:
Post a Comment