Sharia Law OK In US Courts

Federal judge keeps Sharia law restriction out of Oklahoma Constitution
U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange's order against the Sharia law ban is only a preliminary injunction, not a permanent one. The Oklahoma Election Board can appeal.
BY NOLAN CLAY AND CARLA HINTON Oklahoman 459 Published: November 30, 2010

Read more: http://newsok.com/federal-judge-keeps-sharia-law-restriction-out-of-oklahoma-constitution/article/3519080#ixzz16mpBrP5c
An Oklahoma City federal judge Monday ruled against a voter-approved restriction on Islamic law.

In a 15-page order, U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange continued to keep the restriction out of the Oklahoma Constitution. Her ruling was a victory for an Oklahoma City Muslim leader who had complained his constitutional religious rights were in jeopardy.
Muneer Awad, executive director , CAIR, Council on American-Islamic Relations, in his NW 23 Street office in Oklahoma City, November 29, 2010. Photo by Jim Beckel, The Oklahoman ORG XMIT: KOD

Judge issues injunction against Sharia law restriction in Oklahoma

Nov 29 A federal judge today issued a preliminary injunction that keeps a...

“While the public has an interest in the will of the voters being carried out … the Court finds that the public has a more profound and long-term interest in upholding an individual's constitutional rights,” the judge wrote.

At issue was a constitutional amendment that forbids state courts from considering or using international law or Sharia law. The amendment describes Sharia law as Islamic law based on the Quran and the teaching of Mohammed.

Oklahomans on Nov. 2 approved the amendment — in State Question 755 — with 70.08 percent of the vote. Muneer Awad, 27, an American-born Muslim, sued two days later. The judge on Nov. 8 blocked the state Election Board from certifying the SQ 755 results.

The order Monday continues the freeze on those results.

The order is a preliminary injunction, not a permanent one. Still, the state Election Board could appeal now.

The state attorney general's office was considering its options, a spokesman said. A key supporter of the measure, state Sen. Anthony Sykes, R-Moore, said, “I was disappointed but not surprised. We look forward to working with the AG's office on it.”

Awad is executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma. “It is another positive step,” he said after the ruling. (TOWARD WHAT?)

“The initial filing of the lawsuit was a rough time,” Awad said, “But we've noticed since then a tremendous outpouring of support from Muslims and non-Muslims. We are confident we have supporters who want to see this amendment fail. It's not just about the Muslim community. It's about Oklahoma. The nation — the world — is watching.”

Imad Enchassi, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, said, “Justice has been served.”

In Monday's order, the judge wrote that Awad “has made a strong showing that State Question 755's amendment's primary effect inhibits religion and that the amendment fosters an excessive government entanglement with religion.”

The judge rejected the state's argument that the amendment is a broad ban on state courts applying the law of other nations and cultures regardless of what faith they may be based on.

She wrote, “The actual language of the amendment reasonably … may be viewed as specifically singling out Sharia law, conveying a message of disapproval of plaintiff's faith.”

The judge wrote: “This order addresses issues that go to the very foundation of our country, our (U.S.) Constitution, and particularly, the Bill of Rights. Throughout the course of our country's history, the will of the 'majority' has on occasion conflicted with the constitutional rights of individuals, an occurrence which our founders foresaw and provided for through the Bill of Rights.”

Quoting from a 1943 U.S. Supreme Court decision, she wrote, “One's right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.”

The judge said any harm to the state in delaying certification of the results is minimized because the amendment “was to be a preventative measure and the concern that it seeks to address has yet to occur.”

Legislators called the measure the “Save Our State” amendment. The measure's principal author, former state Rep. Rex Duncan, a Republican, has called it a “pre-emptive strike ... against a growing threat.”

Critics of Sharia law contend it could be used as a defense in state courts to such barbaric practices as marital rape.

Read more: http://newsok.com/federal-judge-keeps-sharia-law-restriction-out-of-oklahoma-constitution/article/3519080#ixzz16mq3PXJN

See Jihad Watch for an analysis - They don't seem so crazy now, do they?

Obama nominee sees no "reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States"

On top of that, this Obama pick believes that "America's focus on the War on Terror [is] 'obsessive.'" And his list of countries that flagrantly disregard international law highlights North Korea, Iraq, and the U.S.A. -- which he collectively calls "the axis of disobedience."

"Obama's most perilous legal pick," by Meghan Clyne for the New York Post, March 30 (thanks to Doc Washburn):

JUDGES should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in US courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.

Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers: Harold Koh.

President Obama has nominated Koh -- until last week the dean of Yale Law School -- to be the State Department's legal adviser. In that job, Koh would forge a wide range of international agreements on issues from trade to arms control, and help represent our country in such places as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice.

It's a job where you want a strong defender of America's sovereignty. But that's not Koh. He's a fan of "transnational legal process," arguing that the distinctions between US and international law should vanish.

What would this look like in a practical sense? Well, California voters have overruled their courts, which had imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Koh would like to see such matters go up the chain through federal courts -- which, in turn, should look to the rest of the world. If Canada, the European Human Rights Commission and the United Nations all say gay marriage should be legal -- well, then, it should be legal in California too, regardless of what the state's voters and elected representatives might say.

He even believes judges should use this "logic" to strike down the death penalty, which is clearly permitted in the US Constitution.

The primacy of international legal "norms" applies even to treaties we reject. For example, Koh believes that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a problematic document that we haven't ratified -- should dictate the age at which individual US states can execute criminals. Got that? On issues ranging from affirmative action to the interrogation of terrorists, what the rest of the world says, goes.

Including, apparently, the world of radical imams. A New York lawyer, Steven Stein, says that, in addressing the Yale Club of Greenwich in 2007, Koh claimed that "in an appropriate case, he didn't see any reason why sharia law would not be applied to govern a case in the United States."

A spokeswoman for Koh said she couldn't confirm the incident, responding: "I had heard that some guy . . . had asked a question about sharia law, and that Dean Koh had said something about that while there are obvious differences among the many different legal systems, they also share some common legal concepts."

Score one for America's enemies and hostile international bureaucrats, zero for American democracy.

Koh has called America's focus on the War on Terror "obsessive." In 2004, he listed countries that flagrantly disregard international law -- "most prominently, North Korea, Iraq, and our own country, the United States of America," which he branded "the axis of disobedience.[...]

Even though he's up for a State Department job, Koh is a key test case in the "judicial wars." If he makes it through (which he will if he gets even a single GOP vote) the message to the Obama team will be: You can pick 'em as radical as you like.

Posted by Raymond on March 30, 2009 1:19 PM
AND KOH WAS CONFIRMED AND IS NOW IN THE US STATE DEPT