Comment 3 by Anvil :

Comment 2 by Red Dog :

An ignorant American trying to understand this, so in the UK you have arbitration boards that can take the place of traditional courts for certain communities (e.g. Muslims) and certain crimes? Is that correct?

If I've got it right then why in the world do you do this? Is this some sop to multiculturalism? It seems like a terrible idea to me, IMO there should be one set of secular laws for everyone in any nation. I don't really see any advantage to these kinds of arbitration boards. I don't even see the logical rational for them.

Yup! And you have them in america, too.

Anvil.

We do not have criminal arbitration that is separate from our judicial system. We do have civil binding and non-binding arbitration in the U.S. though.