According
to a CNN article online, a
federal court has blocked an amendment to Oklahoma State law that
would have banned judges in that state from giving any regard to
Sharia Law and International Law, when making rulings. The federal
court ruling that struck down the amendment, which was voted on
by Oklahoma State citizens, was struck down with the reasoning
of the law having singled out Islam. Let's take a
look at the U.S. Constitution.
The CNN article speaks of
the first amendment being in question, which technically does not
directly come into play with this law. The reason being is that it
is not the U.S. Congress seeking to make this law, but rather
an individual state. Hence, it is the 10th and
14th amendments that come into play.
The 10th
amendment gives rights that are not afforded to the U.S.
Congress, to the individual states and the people. While the
14th amendment puts some restrictions on lawmaking and
enforcement of laws that are made by individual states that would
abridge American citizens of American privileges or immunities,
or laws that would deprive any person of life, liberty or property,
without due process of the law. The
14th amendment also protects the citizens
from discrimination by states, giving such citizens equal
protection of the state laws.
So
going off of these two amendments, 10 and 14, Oklahoma absolutely
can make a law that prohibits using laws that are purposely from any
religion, just not single out any one religion. If a law
coincidently is also in a religion, it should not matter. What
should matter is purposely using a law that comes from a religion.
And there should be no question that international law has no place
in our courtrooms. But it was not the international law that got
this amendment struck down. It was the religious part.
It is
my understanding that the threat of Sharia Law
creeping into our courtrooms is with the excuse that some Islamic
people want to be tried under Sharia Law. There are three
things wrong with this. 1) American courts are not
religious institutions and therefore are not to be used as such. 2)
Some religions have laws that go against current American laws. 3)
Once a ruling takes place in an American court of law, it normally
becomes precedence for future rulings. This means that non-Muslims
could end up being tried by such laws in the future, on the simple
grounds of what is called "case-law," a ruling that goes off of past
cases.
Oklahoma would have been better to
have made an amendment stating that only U.S. Federal and
Oklahoma State laws can be used in Oklahoma courts, instead of
saying what outside laws could not be
used. This would have exempted any other laws, including
international laws and Sharia laws from being used in their courts
and not left a loophole for the federal courts to strike down the
amendment. It would also protect the state from someone trying to
use a narrow amendment to imply that another law that is
by another name could be used, because it was not listed in the
amendment as an outside law that could not be
used.
