Kansas governor signs bill effectively banning Islamic law

[rocketpig]

Kasz216 said:

rocketpig said:

homer said:
@Rocketpig
Oh. Still good to have it specifically written down though.

Why? Under no circumstances are judges allowed to rule based on foreign law. The Constitution is the top of the chain and it all rolls downhill from there. It's not as if a judge has ever been able to say "you know what, there's no law on the books for this... I'm gonna make one up and I'm gonna use Sharia Law to do it!" They can't do that. They've never been able to do that. They'll never be able to do that.

Though I think the arguement is that they have done this.  Though, not likely in Kansas.  Largely substituting the regular US way to split things up in divorce or custody proceedings and instead doing so how it would be expected in Shaira law based on said expectations rather then how it would go in a typical US court case.

I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the politcians were making this up, but they claim it has already happened in US courts, specifically in the above proceedings.

There was also a case where a restraining order wasn't granted because while the woman was raped and beaten by her husband, her husband believed he had the right to do these things under Sharia law.

Though that one I'm pretty sure was overturned on appeal.

Really it seems like a hamfisted attempt to take the side of legal absolutism.  That is, you treat every case the same, versus treating judgements based on cultural differences.

All I can find is a bunch of hyperbole that judges have cited Sharia and foreign law in their rulings, not that they actually ruled a case based on it.

Judges can quote from fiction or add nursery rhymes to their rulings. It doesn't mean they actually based the legality of the case on the Three Little Pigs.

I'm curious about this and whether it has happened in the US and whether it was later overturned by an appellate court. The only instances I know where foreign law was meaningfully cited has been in Supreme Court cases. That makes sense because not everything is explained in the law and Constitution. The SCOTUS has been known to reference the Magna Carta and other such non-US documents in their rulings, particularly early in the nation's history.

I know there was some difficulty in Louisiana after the Purchase when the courts continued following French law but that was quickly overturned and isn't really applicable to what we're talking about here. Louisiana had recently become part of the country. It's not surprising that there were holdovers from the "old guard".