Muslim women should be permitted to wear the niqab, or face veil, providing it did not interfere with the administration of justice, according to new official guidelines.

The guidance by the Judicial Studies Board’s Equal Treatment Advisory Committee (ETAC) follows a case at an immigration court last November, where a judge ordered an adjournment because he said he was having difficulty hearing legal executive Shabnam Mughal.

In its guidance, the ETAC said forcing a woman to choose between participating in a court case or removing the veil could have a “significant impact on that woman’s sense of dignity” and could serve to “exclude and marginalize.”

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2007/04/muslim_women_al.php

[This is great news for tolerance and cultural equality! Hopefully we can soon have Sharia, the Islamic Law, on applied on British legal system too.]