High Court: Rabbinical Court not authorized to address post-divorce matters

The High Court of Justice ruled on Thursday that rabbinical courts are not authorized to deal with post-divorce controversies. The ruling foiled an attempt by the Rabbinical Court of Appeals to reinstate jurisdiction that had been taken from it by numerous court rulings.

A seven-strong panel headed by Supreme Court President Asher Grunis ruled that once a divorce is granted, the Family Court is authorized to rule on child custody and child support cases.

“In the absence of an agreement between the sides to accept the Rabbinical Court’s authority, and in the absence of a court hearing on the settlement itself, the child-support issue is outside the Rabbinical Court’s jurisdiction,” the High Court ruling stated.

The High Court intervened in a ruling issued by the Rabbinical Court of Appeals several years ago. A couple who had signed a divorce settlement in a notary’s office more than seven years previously submitted it to the Rabbinical Court of Appeals for ratification.

The Rabbinical Court of Appeals approved the settlement and gave the couple a halakhic divorce.However, about six months later the man asked the Rabbinical Court to reduce the child support set in the settlement. The mother, with the help of the Justice Ministry’s legal aid department in Jerusalem, objected to the Rabbinical Court’s authority to rule on the issue.

A regional rabbinical court rejected the woman’s argument and accepted the man’s demand to reduce child support, as did the Rabbinical Court of Appeals, to whom the woman then appealed. The Rabbinical Court of Appeals’ panel was headed by Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar. Its ruling was issued regardless of the law and several court rulings stipulating that rabbinical courts have no authority to deal with post-divorce cases.

Justice Salim Joubran wrote in Thursday's ruling that the Rabbinical Court of Appeals’ bid to change the customary practice was an “attempt to change the delicate balance between cultural and religious group-identity and individual liberties.”

The rabbinical courts are exclusively authorized to rule on marriage and divorce matters in the Jewish population, including child support, custody, property and alimony, as long as they are part of the initial divorce claim.

This means that one spouse can force the other to deal with these matters in a Rabbinical Court if he or she files for divorce − including these issues − in a Rabbinical Court first, before the other has a chance to file a claim in a secular court.

In the past the Rabbinical Court continued to deal with such cases for years after the divorce had been granted, regardless of the law. The law states that couples cannot be forced to deal with divorce matters in a Rabbinical Court unless they were explicitly part of the initial divorce claim.