04 January 2013

SEMINAR: Minorities, Pluralism and Law


9 January 2013
3-5pm
Room 313

Seminar Co-Hosted at the Queen Mary -- University of London School of Law by the  Legal Theory and Legal History Research Group and GLOCUL: Centre for Culture and Law

Professor Maleiha Malik, Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London

This paper takes current debates about religious law and religious tribunals, and especially sharia tribunals, that have been most recently discussed in the context of the attempts by Baroness Cox to regulate and criminalise religious arbitration (second reading of her private Arbitration and Mediation (Equality) Bill will be presented to the House of Lords on 19 October 2012). The paper uses methods from legal history and legal theory to challenge the assumption that there is, or should be, a reductionist picture summed up as 'one law for all'. It suggests that, contrary to popular contemporary assumptions that state law is the only valid form of normative regulation, an analysis of earlier historical periods, especially the medieval period, suggests a social field in which there were overlapping bodies of law, with very different geographical spheres, as well as co-existing systems of jurisdiction linked to distinct forms of communal life

This event is open to Queen Mary staff and PhD students. If you are not from Queen Mary and would like to attend, please contact Dr Maks Del Mar by email on m.delmar@qmul.ac.uk.

(Thanks to Prakash Shah)

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