YAD L’ISHA LEGAL AID CENTER AND HOTLINE

WINS APPEAL IN ISRAELI HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

Can a husband retroactively void a get which he has already given in the rabbinical court? According to the Israeli High Court of Justice (“Bagatz”), the answer is a resounding “no.”  

BACKGROUND

F came to the Yad L’isha Legal Aid Center and Hotline in April, 2002 for help in obtaining a get from her husband, a Haredi homosexual who had repressed his sexual identity for years, including one unsuccessful year trying to “recover” through a support group for married, gay men.  Advocate Vardit Rosenblum explained to F her rights and advised her to try reaching an agreement with her husband before suing in the civil or rabbinical courts. Indeed, F was successful in reaching a settlement with her husband. She was very young and inexperienced, and because the cause of action was so sensitive in their familial and social circles, Vardit asked the court to help make sure that the get would be delivered as soon as possible; after three court appearances, the get ceremony transpired.

Unfortunately, the very next day F’s husband’s family found out that he had signed a divorce agreement.  Being unaware of the cause of action (he had not shared his sexual preferences with anyone), they pressured him to file a motion which would void the get. F’s husband argued in court that both the divorce agreement and the get should be annulled, for they were procured from him under duress – including charges that Vardit had plied him with drugs! 

Incredibly, the rabbinical court judge who heard the motion granted the husband’s motion to stay the execution of the divorce agreement and to refrain from giving F her get.  (Upon investigation, Vardit learned that this particular judge was a friend of F’s husband’s father, and had even met with them outside of the courtroom while the case was being heard!) Without the get, F could not remarry or bear children; without the civil divorce decree, she was not entitled to any government benefits or child support. 

So, in June, 2002, the Legal Aid Center appealed to the Higher Rabbinical Court on three grounds:

1)                 The issue of the validity of the agreement should now be within the sole jurisdiction of the civil courts since, after the get,  it is now essentially a monetary document.

2)                 No matter what, the court has no jurisdiction to withhold the civil divorce certificate.

3)                 A get is absolute and its validity cannot be questioned once it is granted in a rabbinical court.

The final argument, that a get cannot be retroactively challenged, was the most important in terms of its long-range implications; if the High Court rejected this premise, it would open the door wide for husbands everywhere to recant, leaving women vulnerable even after their divorces are supposed to be final.

TO THE HIGHER RABBINICAL COURT

Vardit’s appeal was scheduled to be heard in October, 2002. F’s husband effectively shot himself in the foot by notifying the judges that although he had received their summons he would not be appearing in court: Vardit presented the facts unopposed.  Nonetheless, the appellate court wanted to hear the other side of the story and requested of both F’s husband and the rabbi who ordered the stay in the lower court to submit their versions of events.

F’s husband’s letter consisted of further accusations as to Vardit’s drugging him and coercing him into giving a get he did not want to give. According to his letter, all was right in the Garden of Eden that was his marriage; he loved F very much and did not understand why she wanted to leave him.

The rabbinical judge, for his part, submitted a ten-page letter documenting his reasoning for overturning the divorce.  In addition to thoroughly besmirching Vardit’s character and twisting facts out of shape, the judge testified that he hadn’t originally thought there was any reason to block the get – but when he discovered his friendship with the man’s father, he understood that the divorce was problematic and must have been coerced. 

The appellate court called a second hearing and asked both F and her husband if they were willing to undergo a new get hearing.  Both refused; he, from recalcitrance, and she, because she held that the first get was binding and therefore there was no need for an additional ceremony.  The judges decided that she couldn’t be forced to “return” to her husband against her will, so they gave the couple three days to come to terms for a new get.   F had no choice but to agree, although her husband refused, and even went to the press to complain of rabbinical court tyranny.  (An article was published in that weekend’s Haaretz newspaper containing flimsy, groundless allegations of religious court persecution based on perceived sexual preferences. )

After three days, the court ruled that the original get was kosher and that F was legally permitted to remarry.  Adding insult to injury, they placed F’s ex-husband on the list of men who are not allowed to marry; after all, he still claimed the get was invalid and he was still part of a viable marital union!  But they granted him thirty days to recant, at which point they said they would publish the grounds of their decision.

THE Israeli High Court of Justice

The Israeli High Court of Justice exists to enable Israelis to appeal to a higher authority when they believe there has been a gross miscarriage of the principles of justice.  Although the High Court of Justice is traditionally reluctant to involve itself in matters of the Rabbinical Courts, F’s ex-husband appealed the Rabbinical High Court’s ruling, arguing that justice had not been served.  He based his case on several grounds: that he had not been given the opportunity to properly defend himself; that there was no basis for the claims made against him; that the case had been handled unprofessionally, and that even the protocol was not properly preserved from the Rabbinical High Court case.

Vardit successfully disproved each and every argument.  Most importantly, she demonstrated to the court that deficiencies in the protocol were the result of F’s excessive sensitivity to her husband; whenever delicate issues were involved, F requested that the court simply record “the defendant responded,” in an attempt to shield him from intimate details which might prove damaging in their familial and religious society.  The Israeli High Court of Justice accepted all of Vardit’s arguments and rejected the case on 14 September, 2003.

F was not the only one to breathe a deep sigh of relief; the question of whether or not a husband can question the validity of a get after it is given had important long-range ramifications for agunot everywhere.  In addition to setting F free, this important ruling also ensures that women who successfully attain a divorce cannot have it arbitrarily revoked.

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