Less than a month after the Archbishop of Canterbury caused some consternation in the UK by suggesting that the adoption of certain aspects of sharia law was unavoidable, a US court judge made a ruling which seems to imply that in some cases accommodation with Roman Catholic canon law should be considered.
In 2004, Dennis Riccitelli, a former Roman Catholic priest, was charged with fraud and with stealing thousands of dollars from his Mesa church. In the middle of last year, while the case was preparing for trial, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge decided those criminal charges were flawed - in part because prosecutors didn’t tell the grand jury about the laws of the Roman Catholic Church.
Riccitelli’s lawyers had argued the priest was acting within Catholic law when he supposedly used real estate and cheque-writing schemes to steal about $160,000 of the church’s money. Under canon law, a priest has the right to spend his church’s money however he sees fit.
Judge Silvia Arellano wrote: “Church law and policies are directly relevant in determining whether the defendant committed the crimes he is charged with.”
Arellano’s decision appears to be unprecedented in the state. In no other case has a judge decided that religious law should be used to examine potential crimes.
“It is an unusual situation, and it causes concern, in our opinion,” said Barnett Lotstein, special assistant Maricopa County attorney. “For example, does it blur the line of church and state? Does it only apply to canon law?”
Prosecutors with the county attorney’s office worry the decision could open the door for defendants of all religions to use their faiths to justify criminal actions. For example, polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, recently found guilty of being an accomplice to rape, contended religious law guided and excused his actions. Islamic terrorists have also tried to use their interpretation of religious law to justify certain crimes.
It is sometimes argued that countries already accommodate religious laws, and that nothing new is being introduced in these cases. For example, in the UK, orthodox Jews are able to get beth din divorces. However, the crucial point here is that couples who obtain a beth din divorce still have to get a separate divorce under the legal system. The beth din law is subjugated to the law of the land and not vice-versa.
There are at least two crucial reasons why religious law should not take precedence over national law. First, there is the issue of equality before the law. In many religions, women do not have legal equality with men. For example, in parts of sharia law, the testimony of a woman is considered not equal to the importance of a male testimony. Any women who were compelled to accept religious law over national law may not receive the justice that their country of birth of residence would afford them.
Secondly, there is the issue of freedom of choice. If I am an orthodox Jew and unable to obtain a beth din divorce, I am still free to get a legal divorce - even if it meant that I had to give up my orthodox faith or become a non-orthodox Jew. However, in some religions opting out of your faith isn’t possible therefore making the benefits of the national law unavailable to you if submission to religious law were ever recognised. If you wish to leave Islam you may face a death sentence from your religious community. In Malaysia, quitting Islam gets you a jail sentence.
All this may seem worlds away from a court in Arizona, but important principles are at stake. There will continue to be pressure from religious communities to recognise their courts, not least because their numbers are growing. (For example, while no one knows the exact numbers of sharia courts currently operating in the UK, one organisation, the Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton, east London, has dealt with over 7,000 cases since it was founded in 1982.) However, in countries where people have chosen to separate church and state, the rulings of a religion should not overrule the laws of the land.
(Sources: ReligionNewsBlog, Prospect Magazine )
I have learnt quite a lot from this post, and once again a very interesting topic of discussion.
This is a perfect illustration of the need for clear secularism in public affairs. The judge’s reasoning (if that’s not too generous an appellation for what he did) was idiotic.