Britain's National Secular Society reported last week that England’s first female Appeal Court judge and former head of the Family Division, Baroness Butler-Sloss, has urged a change to help Muslim women obtain religious divorces from their husbands. In a debate at London's Temple Church, she said that judges should not grant a civil divorce to a Muslim couple unless the couple has already divorced religiously. Under Islamic law, normally it is the husband who can issue a talaq (divorce). If a woman asks a shariah council to dissolve her marriage, she loses some of her financial rights. Britain's Divorce (Religious Marriages) Act 2002 already deals with a similar problem in Jewish divorces by allowing a wife to prevent a final civil divorce decree from being issued until the husband grants the wife a religious divorce.
The Act may already permit judges to apply it to Muslims as well. By its terms, it applies to parties who "were married in accordance with-- (i) the usages of the Jews, or (ii) any other prescribed religious usages; and (b) must co-operate if the marriage is to be dissolved in accordance with those usages."
