On Monday, June 24th, Ms. Afrooz Maghzi, LL.M. from Max Planck Institute for social anthropology spoke with reference to her research project about "state law and out of court dispute resolution in minority communities” within the framework of the lecture series of the Institute for Basic Research in Law.
After a short introduction of the speaker by Prof. Dr. Susanne Beck, LL.M. (LSE), Ms. Maghzi reported on the dispute resolution mechanisms in minority communities in the U.K, Germany and Canada.
After giving a brief overview of the project and the structure of the study, she discussed the public and academic debate. The problem the research is about is the legal responses to possible conflicts of minority normative practices with state law which especially arises in cases of family and criminal law. Ms. Maghzi developed the aim and objectives of the research, which is most of all understanding the applications of minority normative orders in view of human rights principles. Therefore, she chose the Afghan community in Germany because of the community`s enlargement, the social integration of new arrivals and because it`s a community with distinct normative practices. Furthermore, she explained that she choose Canada and England as countries for comparative analysis and also included the political context. The freedom of religion, the equality before the law and finally the multicultural nature of today`s society speaks in favor of the possibility of including the mostly religious rules of the minorities. However, the possible pressure from community, the restriction on individual rights and the hegemonic control in the community speak against this.
The academic debates lead to the reform of law in Ontario of Canada in 2006, and the introduction of a legislative proposal in England in 2011. Ms. Maghzi explained these research findings in England and Canada which are essentially about the function, the relationship with the state, vulnerable individuals, for instance women in religious divorce or homicide and in the end the determinants of parties choices. After that, she talked about the legislative approach such as legislation and judicial decisions and a possible legal reform in Canada and England in family and criminal law.
At the end of her lecture, Ms. Maghzi introduced the main options as state responses that go from Prohibition via full and limited incorporation to non-intervention.
After the lecture an interesting discussion took place, in which the post-colonial debate and the conflict with human rights, the different understanding of justice in minority communities the question whether the state can help in social problems and the integration in time of multiculturalism were discussed.
We thank Ms. Maghzi for the interesting insight into her project!
Further information about the project of MPI (also available in german language).
