Debate on the status of Sharia in the UK has been stoked by Bridget Prentice, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, in comments last week that “Sharia has no jurisdiction in England and Wales and there is no intention to change this position”.

For good measure she added: “We do not accommodate any other religious legal system in this country’s laws.” And, as lawyers would say, for the further avoidance of doubt she threw in: “Religious courts are always subservient to the established family courts of England and Wales.”

Her comments, in a parliamentary answer to Michael Penning, Shadow Minister for Health, brought criticism that ministers have now given the seal of approval to Sharia “courts”, or councils, in Britain.

The reason? The Justice Minister went on to say that in any family dispute dealing with money or children, if the parties to a judgment by a Sharia council want it recognised by the English authorities, they are free to draft a consent order embodying the terms of the agreement and submit it to an English court. This, she said, allows English judges to scrutinise it to ensure that it complies with English legal tenets.

That “add-on” does seem to raise the spectre of legitimising Sharia rulings. Religious courts already are widely used to settle personal disputes — any member of a religious community can use such a court and abide by its decision.

Decisions are subject to national law and can be enforced only when the religious court acts as an arbitrator under the Arbitration Act 1996, the minister said — and then only when a decision is not contrary to public policy or English law.

Arbitration, however, does not apply to family disputes. What is at issue are not Sharia decisions made within the legal framework of arbitration, but the hundreds of family disputes that go to a Sharia council each year for a mediated settlement on money or children. It is these, Ms Prentice says, that could go before judges for approval.

About ten 10 Sharia councils already operate dispute resolution schemes, from Leyton in East London to Dewsbury in Yorkshire. The first was set up in 1982. Muslim Councils or Muslim Arbitration Tribunals (MATs) are not true courts; nor, despite their name, are they statutory tribunals. They are informal tribunals that operate outside the justice system, offering a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) or mediation for people with civil or family disputes.

By comparison, the Jewish Beth Din courts, also a religious forum for resolving disputes, operate daily as they have done for centuries as a means of resolving non-criminal disagreements from business matters to divorce, from food to medical ethics.

There are two key elements to the Beth Din dispute procedures. First, both parties must consent willingly to the process and the decisions remain subject to national law. So in the case of divorce, for example, the parties obtaining a Jewish divorce, or Get, must still obtain a civil divorce alongside the religious one.

When it comes to Sharia, concerns have been raised about both aspects. First, the question of consent. There are fears that both parties may not always have consented willingly to the resolution of the dispute under Sharia; the woman, in particular, may have been put under pressure to accept the ruling and therefore is not on an equal footing.

Secondly, the rulings themselves, it is argued, are based on a law that does not accord women equal rights as recognised in Britain (although Geraldine Morris, family law expert with LexisNexis, says that in some aspects, Sharia can be seen as more advanced than current divorce laws, in that it recognises marriage contracts, or Nikah, setting out financial provision in the event of a divorce).

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