The hills are alive, with the sound of...

...dogwhistles.

Forget the facts. Or, if really desperate, simply ignore the relevant facts. In this case, that the judge focussed on the mental capacity of the legator.

>>This is beside the point because it was the plaintiff's case that Sharia should apply.<<

It is not the relevant point at all. It may have been the justification the boys used to defend their position, that "the children were obligated to distribute the estate according to Islamic law." But it most certainly was not a relevant fact as far as the judge was concerned.

Nor should it have been.

What we have is a clear example where Sharia Law is NOT a consideration in an Australian court of law. But this does not prevent the dog-whistlers from pretending that it is the thin and of the wedge. Or the start of the slippery slope or whatever, choose your cliché du jour.

>>The proponents of Sharia law will not give up; they are implacable and have no respect for secular law.<<

Pee-e-e-e-e-ep.

Pericles,

With the greatest respect, wait and see.

In my more paranoid moments, I sometimes suspect that advocates for Sharia and those advocating for the recognition of Aboriginal traditional practices against women and young people, meet in a secret location and agree to play a sort of leap-frog - 'You put forward this, we'll put forward that, let's see how it flies. If it fails, we'll lick our wounds, wait for a bit and then try something else.'

And to use your term, one tactic is dog-whistling about the unfairness of an Australian system which allows mainstream cultural practices but penalises Moslem or Aboriginal practices, merely because they are brutal, barbaric and uncivilized, and so is discriminatory - so the argument would go.

We can avoid all that, and any unpleasant referral to dog-whistling from both sides, by the non-recognition in law of ANY cultural practice - and by re-affirming, reinforcing, the legal equality of men and women, the rights of children to the protection of the state, and the implicit requirement that all cultural practices must conform to Australian law, no exceptions.

Culture should be subordinate to law, in other words. People's rights should trump culture.

Cheers,

Joe