The legal phenomenon also includes the (undefined) set of legal and non-legal norms that actually underlie the behaviour of individuals. Thus, the study of Sharia law in the West through the establishment of Islamic courts seems to be of some interest. Think, for example, of the United Kingdom, where in 2018 the Family Division of the High Court ruled that a nikah celebrated in 1998 was void (as contrary to the Marriage Act 1949) and, on the other hand, in 2020 the Court of Appeal intervened and overturned the High Court's 2018 decision on the grounds that the union in question could not give rise to a void marriage but was non-existent, as provided for in the Matrimonial Causes Act (1973). If the Council of Europe has recommended that the UK regulate Islamic religious marriages for the purposes of their legal recognition, as is currently the case for Christian and Jewish religious marriages, one wonders whether the 2020 decision declaring the non-existence of Islamic religious marriages lays the groundwork for a future downsizing of the Islamic Courts, or instead is an early sign of the need for legislative intervention, as already recommended by the Council of Europe.
