Sharia law in Canada

Recently, the province of Ontario announced that it will permit civil disputes such as divorce to be mediated under sharia, or Islamic law. Mediators trained in interest-based dispute resolution (including myself) are critical of claims that these proposals for dispute resolution are, in fact, mediation, which requires at a minimum a neutral, third party facilitator; the voluntary participation of the parties, and mutual agreement for resolution. If, under sharia, divorce must be mediated by a particular person, such as an Imam, according to specific principles, then quite probably that person may not be neutral. In mediation circles, there is an on-going debate as to the meaning of neutrality, and whether it refers, for example, to impartiality (unbiased, fair to all parties) or to equidistance (between parties). In addition, if the third party is doing something other than facilitating the resolution of the dispute by the parties, then that is not a mediation either. It may resemble mediation, but it is not mediation. Again, there is an on-going debate amongst conflict resolution providers as to whether or not mediators can be evaluative in their role, or whether they are strictly facilitators.