Comment 13 by TeraBrat

Arbitration is fine as long as both parties are freely agreeing to the conditions. If everyone in these Sharia courts is freely agreeing to the process I don't have a problem with it.

The problem is that the very nature of Sharia law makes it possible, even probable, for women to be coerced to agree against their will.

I've been involved in arbitration, and one of the whole purposes of it is to have an independent arbiter who can 'think outside the box' ( sorry to use a hated cliche ) when disputing parties cannot reach agreement. In that sense arbitration exists because every dispute is unique and may thus require a unique resolution that the conflicting parties simply can't come up with themselves.

If there was a 'set way of doing things' ( e.g Sharia ) then one would not need arbitration......because the set rules would themselves determine the outcome. Thus Sharia is totally the opposite of arbitration..........there is absolutely no way that a pre-determined set of rules can be said to be impartial to the protagonists.