Islamic criminal law in Aceh sharia courts hear and rule on both civil cases under Islamic law (such as divorce and inheritance) and criminal law under the "qanuns". However, civil cases continue to be the vast majority of cases heard by the court. In 2016 the courts received 10,888 first instance civil cases and 131 appeals, compared to 324 first instance criminal cases and 15 appeals. The sharia courts are part of the broader Indonesian legal system. Their decisions can be appealed to the Supreme Court, and their judges (including the chief judge) are appointed by the Supreme Court. Amnesty International said that they are
Sharia be put to death, enslaved or be ransomed. Yet other scholars suggest that sharia has become a product of human interpretation and inevitably leads to disagreements about the “precise contents of the Shari'a." In the end, then, what is being applied is not sharia, but what a particular group of clerics and government decide is sharia. It is these differing interpretations of sharia that explain why many Muslim-majority countries have laws that restrict and criminalize apostasy, proselytism and their citizens' freedom of conscience and religion. Homosexual intercourse is illegal in sharia law, though the prescribed penalties differ from one school