Refusal of a divorce
What is refusal of divorce?
Refusal to divorce is a status derived from Jewish law, in which a man and a woman entered into a marriage covenant and now one of them wants to annul it but the other prevents him from doing so.
In this situation, the party interested in the procedure Divorce He is a divorce refuser and the one who refuses the process is a divorce refuser.
The end of the marriage must be official according to Jewish law, and the rabbinical courts define the divorce refuser, a woman or a man, as such if two years have passed since a lawsuit was filed against the refusing party and the divorce according to Jewish law has not materialized.
The institution responsible for granting the get is Home Rabbinic Law Although it has different powers than the civil court. In 1995, a law was enacted that was intended to deal with the phenomenon and in doing so defined the sanctions that the rabbinical court may impose on those who refuse a get..
The situation in Israel
While in Israel the system responsible for granting a divorce and dealing with refusal of a divorce according to Halacha is the rabbinical courts, abroad their authority is limited and they cannot force a divorce on a person who refuses a divorce, as this requires synchronization with the laws of the country in question.
But when it comes to a case of refusal to get a divorce in Israel, the Rabbinical Court may impose very severe sanctions on the refuser, ranging from deprivation of his rights to imprisonment for a maximum period of ten years – when even in prison he can be deprived of his basic rights.
It should be noted that in serious cases where it is necessary to apply these sanctions, they will be applied in order from the most lenient to the most severe.
Aharon Monsa, advisor to the Director General of the Rabbinical Court, was quoted in 2005 as part of the written proposal submitted to the Knesset on the subject of the status of women in the event of refusal of a divorce, as saying that most cases of refusal of a divorce do not reach such serious levels that sanctions are implemented, because threatening the refuser with them (since they are usually directed at the man) is enough to deter him and make him grant the divorce.
In September 2008, the Great Rabbinical Court issued a ruling calling for expanding the powers of the rabbinical courts in order to successfully eradicate the phenomenon in Beitar Sha’at.
According to Israeli law, similar to the format Divorce AgreementIn order to implement the get, both spouses are required to agree on the process, and without this agreement, the courts are not authorized and permitted to force a get on them, but can only recommend or force the divorce process.
That is, a couple can be divorced according to the court, meaning their marriage is not actually consummated, but they are not divorced according to the rabbinical court that has not yet granted them a get.
Distribution of the phenomenon
Studies conducted to date have revealed the main motives for the phenomenon and its scope: the wife’s refusal accounts for 20% of cases, and the husband’s refusal accounts for 19%, so that today the number of divorce refusers of both sexes is similar.
Reasons for conflicts over finances and business matters Property division constitute 13% of cases and a claim for peace of mind constitutes 5% of cases.
These studies emphasize the number of cases of extortion of divorces – in order to obtain favorable terms in divorce. Although the number of those who refuse a divorce is usually stated in the hundreds, according to a study by the Rakman Center for the Status of Women, the number of women who refuse a divorce appears to be more than one hundred thousand women (as of 2006).
In 2005, a document was submitted to the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women on the subject of handling agunot and get refusals, according to which the scope of the phenomenon is controversial due to the very definition of the concept.
Read more: On the Criminal Prosecution of Divorce Refusals
The legal status of those who refuse a divorce
According to Halacha, more stringent conditions are imposed on the woman when she is refused a divorce, so that she is prohibited from consummating her marriage with another man and having children (if she does so, she is considered an adulteress and her children are bastards).
A man, on the other hand, can be given permission to marry when he is refused a divorce and his children will not be bastards.
In divorce cases, the rabbinical court awards lower amounts to the wife and her children than those awarded in the family court. Therefore, part of a man’s means of blackmailing his wife is to condition the divorce on transferring the case to the rabbinical court.
The social system in Israel today allows women who are denied a divorce to deal with situations of extortion and injustice towards them on several levels, as explained and proposed in the proposal to the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women.
According to the government proposal, the woman who is refused a divorce is entitled to adequate legal representation, whether by lawyer Or on behalf of associations dedicated to the subject.
The woman may apply to the court with a request to impose sanctions on the refuser, and may also file a civil lawsuit for damages and suffering caused by the delay in the divorce.
Meanwhile, other proposals were emphasized in recent years that call for expanding the definition of a person who refuses a get in the rabbinical court, avoiding putting pressure on a woman to transfer her claim to a rabbinical court, and expanding the situations in which the man will be obligated to grant a get, which now also include alcoholics, drug addicts, gamblers, and more.
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