Religious tribunals in Canada

I'm intrigued by this story, coming out of Canada, about "faith-based tribunals."  In my former life as a practicing attorney, I had some interactions with the workings of "beit din" tribunals, or rabbinical courts.  It appears, from the article, that the province of Ontario has "allowed Catholic and Jewish tribunals to settle family law matters on a voluntary basis since the adoption of the Arbitration Act in 1991.  The practice got little attention until some proponents of Sharia demanded the same rights."  Last week, though, the province's premier, Dalton McGuinty, announced that "he would ban all religious arbitration in Canada's largest province."

On Sunday, McGuinty said religious arbitrations "threaten our common ground," and promised his Liberal Party government would soon introduce legislation to outlaw them in Ontario.

"Ontarians will always have the right to seek advice from anyone in matters of family law, including religious advice," he told The Canadian Press. "But no longer will religious arbitration be deciding matters of family law."

Opponents of Sharia were thrilled by McGuinty's decision.

"I think our voice got heard loud and clear," said Homa Arjomand, a women's rights activist who organized a series of anti-Sharia protests worldwide last Thursday.

Anti-Sharia critics have said the country's 750,000 Muslims come from different backgrounds and strains of Islam and that women are not treated equally under the system, which they say runs counter to the Charter of Rights and Freedom, Canada's bill of rights.

I had a chance to study again Harold Berman's wonderful book, Law and Revoluion, which -- among other things -- emphasizes the integrated, pluralistic, polycentric nature of the Western legal tradition, which includes the canon law of the Church, the royal law of the major traditions, the urban law of newly emerging cities, feudal law, manorial law, the law merchant, etc.  If the "common ground" of the Western legal tradition has always been as rich, diverse, and varied as Berman shows, then I cannot help wondering why a liberal democracy today cannot make room for religious tribunals, so long as no one is compelled to employ them.

That said, I do not know enough about Sharia to know whose view -- and competing views are described in the story -- of it is the better one. 

Rick