Do we need a Sikh court?

Last week in Lincoln’s Inn Hall, nearly 50 prominent Sikhs gathered to mark the formation of the world’s first specifically Sikh court. When the body opens for business on 1 June, its members will be available essentially to do two things. They can provide what the lawyers call Alternative Dispute Resolution, helping to settle family and community arguments. In addition, on request they will act as arbitrators in property or business disputes, with the power to give determinations which will be legally binding.

Apart from noting the irony that the governing body of Lincoln’s Inn – which last year ostentatiously distanced itself from religion by abolishing its Christian grace before meals – is now welcoming with open arms an explicitly religious but non-Christian legal initiative, what should we say? On balance, we should probably support this new court. On the other hand, the fact that it is being set up in the first place needs to set us thinking and perhaps should give us wider concern.