Website reviews

If there are two things which should never be discussed at the dinner table, they are religion and the assignation of incorporeal property.  Nonetheless, religion and the law can get along nicely, as these websites prove.

Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship

www.lawcf.org

I’ll begin by declaring my membership of the LCF, whose website has just received a fancy new update. Spruced up, it looks very nice indeed, although the navigation is a little confusing (with some on the left and some on the right). As with most of this month’s websites, there is much to interest lawyers who are of the corresponding religious belief, but I’ll try to concentrate on what may interest others.

Legal issues which are currently making waves on this website include: the introduction of the sexual orientation regulations; legal challenges to restrictions on Christian unions at various UK universities (including Edinburgh); and the proposed merger of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority. If you have an interest in these areas of law, the various briefing papers would make interesting and useful reading.

Also of potential interest is the CLEAR project (www.clearinternational.org), a pro bono organisation working in Kenya and Uganda. It is primarily a “grass roots” project using local lawyers, but LCF volunteers (mainly law students and young lawyers) are also involved.

Association of Christian Law Firms

www.aclf.org.uk

Membership of this association is open to solicitors’ practices where “all partners can sign a Declaration that they practise as lawyers under the lordship of Jesus Christ”. Apparently there are no such firms in Scotland, and with the advent of the new strand of religious belief discrimination in employment law, a deluge of new Christian-only firms would seem an unlikely proposition.

The website is singularly uninspiring (in all senses of that word).

Association of Muslim Lawyers (UK)

www.aml.org.uk

The AML is a relatively young organisation, just over 10 years old, but seems no less organised for that. The website is pretty good on the whole, and seems to be updated relatively frequently.

The legal resources page would be a useful starting point for anyone who requires understanding of some of the complexities of Shari’ah law on various financial and legal products including wills, mortgages and charitable organisations. It appears that one would be wise not to just dabble in this area of law, and the online directory promises a database of UK practitioners who are qualified to advise on aspects of Shari’ah law. However, when I visited the site, the directory appeared to be entirely empty.

Other legal issues discussed on the website include: asylum law; the financial consequences of relationship breakdown for cohabitees; and discrimination. I’d also recommend downloading the Anti-Terror Raid Guide for a fascinating insight into the nuts and bolts of what goes on before the press conferences we all get to see on breakfast news.

Muslim Lawyers

www.muslim-lawyers.net

This international site has a similar focus to the previous one. It has regular updates on news of interest to Muslim lawyers, but less in the way of specific legal resources. The legal resources and updates which are there necessarily have more of an international flavour and deal with some interesting philosophical points, such as the relationship between the European history of law and Islam – and sources of Islamic law. For the antiquarians among you there’s even the original text of the 1935 fatwa of Palestinian religious scholars.

The reports section is really wide ranging too, containing articles as diverse as a Muslim eyewitness account of the massacre at Srebrenica, and a treatment on modifications of the Turkish constitution with respect to international commercial arbitration. A fascinating site, full of surprises.

International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists

www.intjewishlawyers.org

Warning! Membership of this organisation (and particularly reading their magazine) may get you into trouble. In the recent case of Fatima Helow (www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2007csih05.html), Lady Cosgrove’s impartiality in hearing the asylum case of a Lebanese/Palestinian woman was called into question as a result of her enrolment with this association.

The website itself is presented attractively enough, but there is little to interest the non-member. The main legal issues covered are those regarding anti-semitism and human rights.

Before you leave the site though, do take a moment to read the “public trials”, which are essentially three of the most elaborate moots ever, one of which was heard inter alia by our very own Lord Caplan. These each use imaginary cases involving imaginary countries to explore important legal issues: the boundaries of political speech; limits on freedom of expression; and the sale of nuclear weapons (sic). Interesting and thought-provoking stuff.