sawyl | Sticking up for the Archbishop

I feel an unusual desire to stick up for the Archbishop of Canterbury. For those unfamiliar with the current debate, Rowan Williams gave a lecture earlier this week in which he discussed the problems of reconciling British jurisprudence with the pluralist nature of society. The lecture text itself is interesting, thoughtful and broadly liberal. Why then the furore? Because the Archbishop chose to illustrate some of his points using references to sharia law.

Divested of its subtleties by the media, the lecture was taken as a call by the archbishop to replace English law with sharia for those that want it. Here's the BBC's first take on it:

The Archbishop of Canterbury says the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable". Dr Rowan Williams told Radio 4's World at One that the UK has to "face up to the fact" that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system. Dr Williams argues that adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law would help maintain social cohesion.

Which, while factually correct — Williams did say those words — manages to miss the point of the entire discussion. What the Archbishop appears to be arguing for is an inversion in the way that we view the law, such that the normal English secular law applies a set of universal ground rules, on top of which can be placed a set of option rules, e.g. sharia or Orthodox Jewish laws, in so far as these do not conflict with the underlying universal rules. Rather in the way that if I decide to join a sailing club, I might be subject a rule that says that I have to wear a life-jacket whilst sailing, but if the club were to, say, require me to kill anyone who finished behind me this would be trumped by English law, so might religions be able to set rules that apply to their followers. Why would anyone want to subscribe to an additional set of rules? Williams cites a couple of possible reasons: that they would improve social cohesion; and that in order for the legal process to be justified it needs to communicate with the offender in a way that they can understand (see R.A. Duff on the subject).

I'm not entirely sure I agree with the Archbishop, but he has been comprehensively monstered. It's a shame that it no longer seems to be possible to have any form of public intellectual discussion without being grossly misrepresented.