Victory…but the battle continues!
From the Legal Trenches
The fight to advance freedom of marriage was crowned with yet another victory last week. A Supreme Court Justice, Prof. Dafna Barak-Erez, rejected the state's request to postpone implementation of the ruling by the administrative court in Jerusalem on "Utah marriages" (civil marriages of Israelis performed in Utah, USA, by video).
29/11/2022 00:38
Tags: Utah marriage · Zoom · Supreme Court · legal advocacy
A wedding performed via videoconference, courtesy of Shira Hofesh and and Alex Kabishcher
The Administrative Court in Jerusalem ruled in favor of the petition both with regard to the 8 couples that we represented and also with regard to the general remedy that we requested [along with Rabbis Spector and Levinsky from Utah, who married Israeli couples and joined our petition]. The ruling instructed the Population and Immigration Authority to register all the couples who get married via teleconference in Utah County, which allows couples from all over the world to do so. The ruling was not implemented until now, due to a temporary ruling to postpone execution, however now the High Court has canceled the temporary postponement.
Justice Barak-Erez quoted and reinforced Judge Rubin's (previous) ruling: "The District Court noted... that the State is presumed to apply equal treatment, so that if in the future a request for marriage registration is submitted by respondents who have not yet done so, or by others who have held a ceremony in a similar format in the state of Utah - their marriage should be registered." The State fully understood the meaning of the court's ruling, and therefore based its request for a stay of execution on exactly this aspect of the ruling: "The ruling is not limited only to the respondents... the court stated that it is a principled ruling and instructed that it be applicable in future to anyone who applies to the Population Authority with a similar request.” However, the High Court accepted our objection and rejected the State's request for a stay!
And yet, although the Population Authority has agreed in the last few days to register the 8 couples we represented in the original petition as married (following the decision by the High Court not to extend the stay of implementation) the Population Authority has continued to refuse to register all the other couples who are waiting for registration, some of them for almost two years! At first, they said they were studying the decision, and now they have informed the couples that they will not register them until the High Court rules on the appeal that the State has filed against it.
The Population Authority has continued to refuse to register all the other couples who are waiting for registration, some of them for almost two years!
Hiddush sent a strong letter to the Population Authority and the Attorney General protesting the contempt of the courts’ rulings, including that of the Supreme Court. We also alluded to the possible connection to the expected erosion of the Israeli Judiciary system as demanded by the religious parties. Aside from the issue of marriage itself, the disrespect for the rulings is extremely serious, and illustrates the importance of the fight for the rule of law and of organizations like Hiddush, which stands by citizens as they find themselves confronting the authorities (who disregard their rights and who are often motivated by ulterior motives, such as the pressure of the religious parties to block freedom of marriage in Israel).
We also emphasized the disregard for the suffering that some couples go through, due to the extended length of time without their marriage being registered. In one case, for example, the spouse is still in Israel as a tourist, and cannot obtain citizenship or residency due to the refusal to register her marriage. She became ill with cancer, and currently does not have health insurance, which she would have received from the State had her marriage been registered. Therefore, she is not entitled to receive the medicine she needs, and her life is in danger. 15 additional couples who were not included in the original petition have since turned to us and requested that we represent them in this struggle.
Next week we will file a motion against the state for contempt of court, and of course we are also preparing for the hearing that will be held in the Supreme Court on January 30th, 2023, concerning the appeal that the State has filed against the Court’s ruling.