Maldives parliament to revise penal code to include Sharia

Over the last year maybe 18 months - in the Maldives we have already seen flogging introduced. A law was passed that denies citizenship to non-Muslims. But it appears that this was not enough - some have complained that the revised penal code - which gives priority to Sharia - does not include amputations for theft and death for apostates.

It would probably still be nice to vacation there - never mind the stones. Like Aceh, Indonesia they will undoubtedly be pushing for stonings for adultery.

– Minivan News: “Existing laws and regulations, principles of Islamic sharia and norms and values acceptable to Maldivians were taken as the basis for drafting the law, he said.”

– “Suood said difficulties arose when there were conflicts between the three. ‘Some Islamic sharia punishments are not enforced in the Maldives. For example, there is no amputation for thieves or death for apostates.’”

– “Another difficulty were disagreements among fiqh scholars in interpreting the Qur’an and the hadiths, he continued, and the traditional values and practices in the country were considered in such cases.”

– “Several MPs said Islamic sharia should take precedence in specifying offences and punishments and spoke in favour of introducing the death penalty.”

REAL

Ungoofaru MP Dr Afrashim Ali of the opposition Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) said the penal code did not include offences specified in Islamic fiqh or law, adding it was obligatory to enforce punishments set out in Islam.

Apart from the Qu'ran and the hadiths, said Afrashim, the consensus (ijmah) of religious scholars should be taken into account when drafting such laws.

“Before looking at the laws of England or France, we have to look at the principles of sharia in Islam,” he said. “I am not saying at all that we should not benefit from laws developed in England or France in 1,000 or 2,000 years.”

While there was no objection to assimilating laws of non-Islamic countries, he said, it should not take precedence over Islamic laws.

– Wikipedia notes that: “The Maldives have, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), undertaken to write the world’s first Muslim criminal code”

Eva referred to the words of Paul Robinson, a University of Pennslyvania professor who conducted a study of the criminal justice system of the Maldives under the sponsorship of the UNDP and concluded that, “the Maldivian criminal justice system systematically fails to do justice and regularly does injustice.”