Litigation as dispute resolution mechanism in Islamic finance: Malaysian experience
Litigation as the popular mode of dispute resolution in Islamic finance has proven inadequate in its application and interpretation of Shariah. Trails of Islamic finance cases have shown that civil court judges have no problems deciding on the civil law issues pertaining to Islamic finance, however, they are unsuited for adjudicating the Shariah issues. Section 55–58 of the Central Bank Act 2009 accords formal recognition to the Shariah Advisory Council (SAC) as their rulings is binding to the Islamic financial institutions and the courts. Post 2009 have seen that cases of law challenged the said sections as unconstitutional. The objective of this paper is to analyse the role of SAC either as expert ascertain or expert determination of the rulings on Islamic finance. In the course of discussion, s. 55–58 of Central Bank of Malaysia Act 2009 and Article 121(1) of the Constitution are analysed. Findings of the study showed that the role of SAC is merely expert ascertain of the rulings since they have no judicial power. Islamic financial law is divine in nature and different from the man made laws.
Adjudication of Islamic banking and finance cases in the civil courts of Malaysia
The adjudication of Islamic banking and finance (IBF) laws in Malaysia is unique given the Malaysian parallel legal systems. Although IBF is a branch of Islamic law, the civil court has the appropriate jurisdiction to decide the cases. This is due to the fact that banking falls under the items 7 and 8 of the Federal List of the Federal Constitution. The trails of decided cases showed that there are problems in resolving IBF cases in the civil courts. This paper aims to discuss the adjudication of Islamic Banking in the civil courts. The authors employed the method of legal documents analysis in analyzing the IBF cases. The analysis highlighted four obstacles in adjudicating IBF in civil courts, namely; inadequacy of existing legal framework, complications of legal documentation, competency of civil court judges and expert evidence. It also analysed the four approaches adopted by the civil courts in deciding IBF cases; the ‘parties to be bound by their agreement’, the ‘strict adherence to civil law’, the ‘justice and equitable’ and the ‘looking into the substance’.
The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ten years on: Successes and future challenges under the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Paperbacks. June 2010
This book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) by bringing together the views of key practitioners and policy-makers who have played an outstanding role in thinking about and shaping EU policies on freedom, security and justice. 
 
Ten years ago, the member states transferred competences to the EU for law and policy-making in the fields of immigration, asylum and border controls, and began the transfer process for criminal justice and policing. This decade of European cooperation on AFSJ policies has experienced very dynamic convergence, the enactment of a large body of European law and the setting-up of numerous EU agencies working in these domains. Such dynamism in policy-making has not been without challenges and vulnerabilities, however. As this collective volume shows, the main dilemmas that lie ahead relate to an effective (while more plural) institutional framework under the Treaty of Lisbon, stronger judicial scrutiny through a greater role for national courts and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, better mechanisms for evaluating and monitoring the implementation of EU AFSJ law and a more solid fundamental rights strategy. The contributions in this volume address the progress achieved so far in these policy areas, identify the challenges for future European cooperation in the AFSJ and put forward possible paths for making more progress in the next generation of the EU’s AFSJ.