Magistrate Asks Muslim to Remove Veil in Court. Gets Reprimanded and “Sent on Course”
A magistrate who refused to deal with a Muslim woman wearing a veil has been reprimanded. Ian Murray walked out of court in Manchester when Zoobia Hussain, 32, appeared last June wearing a niqab covering her face apart from her eyes.
The jobless mother-of-five from Crumpsall was accused of causing £1,500 worth of damage to her council house. Mr Murray said he felt the way she was dressed raised identity issues.
The Office of Judicial Complaints said Mr Murray had been formally reprimanded and ordered to receive further training. The decision was rubber-stamped by the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips.
Hussain, who was later allowed to give evidence from behind a screen so men in the court could not see her, was convicted of causing criminal damage when her family was thrown out for rent arrears.Mr. Murray was ordered to attend further training on how to keep to judicial guidance, even though this states that such situations should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
There is no compulsion to wear the niqab on religious grounds as it is not mentioned in the Koran, and it is a well-established practice in British courts of law that presiding officers should be able to identify to who they are talking.
Hussain’s lawyer said her client was “shocked and distressed” by the “insensitive and unacceptable” treatment.
Massoud Shadjareh, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, welcomed the reprimand. He said: “No one wants to remove the independence of the judiciary, but for a magistrate just to get up and walk out of a case is contempt of his own court.”