Religion and Family Law

The interaction between religion, law and the family has emerged as particular focus in my work.

This is the focus of my book  Religion and Marriage Law: The Need for Reform which provides the first accessible guide to how contemporary marriage law interacts with religion, identifying pressure points and setting out proposals for reform. 

My work has included research on the interaction between religion and marriage / divorce law particularly exploring the legal recognition of religious tribunals.

Building upon the Social Cohesion and Civil Law empirical project funded by the AHRC/ESRC Religion and Society Programme, my recent work has included an edited work on Religion and Legal Pluralism (Ashgate, 2015) within the interdisciplinary Religion and Society series.

More recently, a range of publications that have sought to understand the place of religious tribunals using a range of theoretical approaches including Ayelet Shachar’s work on Joint Governance, Niklas Luhmann’s Systems Theory and Sharon Thompson’s Feminist Relational Contract Theory.

Examples:

• R Sandberg and S Thompson, ‘Relational Autonomy and Religious Tribunals’ (2017) Oxford Journal of Law and Religion, pp. 137-161

• R Sandberg and S Thompson, ‘The Sharia Law Debate: The Missing Family Law Context’ (2016) 177 Law and Justice 181-192

• S Thompson and R Sandberg, ‘Common defects of the Divorce Bill and Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill 2016-17’ (2017) Family Law 425-451.