A Western Pennsylvania lawmaker is seeking to prohibit Pennsylvania courts and state judges from applying foreign legal code or legal systems, including sharia law, when in conflict with the federal or state constitutions, or infringe upon Constitutional rights. The bill was advanced by the House State Government Committee on Tuesday, Oct. 18.
According to Republican state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, of Butler, he wrote in a statement that the fundamental liberties protected under House Bill 1288 include due process, right to bear arms, freedom of religion and speech, freedom of press and any right of privacy that is defined in the Pennsylvania Constitution and the United States Constitution.
“This legislation addresses an alarming trend across America where activist judges apply or sanction foreign law in cases such as family law,” said Metcalfe. “In particular, sharia law relegates women, children and non-Muslims to second-class citizens and allows for primitive treatment, fierce punishment, torture, mutilation and even ‘honor killings’ for anyone who refuses to comply with sharia mandates. If enacted, House Bill 1288 would ensure that sharia law and all other unjust and barbaric foreign legal systems are forever banished from Pennsylvania courtrooms and that the Constitution remains supreme in the fair and equal dispensations of the rule of law.”
Most commonly referred to as American Laws for American Courts, legislation similar to House Bill 1288 has been passed with strong bipartisan support in Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arizona, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi and South Dakota, Metcalfe said in statement.
