http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/ ... _Veils.php
LONDON: The head of a network of British immigration courts ruled Thursday that lawyers should be allowed to wear full-face veils in the courtroom unless it prevents them being heard.
The guidance from Sir Henry Hodge, head of the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal, follows an incident involving a Muslim lawyer at a hearing in Stoke-in-Trent, central England. Shabnam Mughal, 27, refused to remove her veil at the request of a judge in an immigration hearing, who said he could not hear her.
Mughal insisted she had the right to use the black veil covering all but her eyes, and had worn it at many previous hearings. Judge George Glossop adjourned the hearing and officials asked Hodge to issue a decision about how to resolve the courtroom stand-off.
Hodge said Thursday that if a lawyer wishing to wear a veil "has the agreement of his or her client and can be heard reasonably clearly by all parties to the proceedings, then the representative should be allowed to do so."
If the judge could not hear the lawyer clearly, "then the interests of justice are not served, and other arrangements will need to be made," Hodge said in a statement.
"Such arrangements will vary from case to case, subject to judicial discretion and the interests of all parties."
"It is important to be sensitive in such cases," he added.
The hearing involving Mughal is due to resume Monday under a different judge. The court service said the new judge would decide how to resolve the incident in the light of Hodge's guidance.
The head of the judiciary said more general rules were needed to clarify courtroom practice surrounding the increasingly contentious issue of women who wear the veil.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said he had asked a committee to "urgently" draw up guidelines on the wearing of veils by all participants in the court system, including lawyers, witnesses, jurors and magistrates.
"This is clearly a sensitive issue which requires a well considered response in the form of guidance to the judiciary generally," he said.
The issue of face-covering veils has become an increasingly contentious one in Britain, which is home to 1.6 million Muslims.
Last month, former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw wrote an article on Muslim women's veils that triggered an emotionally charged debate around Britain and as far away as the Middle East.
A short time later, a Muslim teaching assistant in northern England was suspended from her job for refusing to remove a black veil that left only her eyes visible.
Straw wrote in the newspaper column that he asks women who visit his district office wearing veils that cover almost their entire face to remove the garment when they meet with him.
It set off a national debate on British multiculturalism and the identity and integration of minority groups, particularly Muslims.
Prime Minister Tony Blair eventually jumped in, saying the full-face veil known as the niqab is "a mark of separation."
