A woman residing in France has filed for divorce with the Petach Tikvah Rabbanut claiming she is a battered wife. She documents harsh physical and verbal violence against her. While the couple resides in France she is filing for divorce in Israel, where they were married.
The couple appeared in a beis din four months ago, during which time the husband denied her allegations. After that hearing they both returned to France. When the husband returned to Israel a few weeks later, he was surprised to learn he cannot leave the country since attorney Ron Reichmann requested and received a judicial order prohibiting him from leaving the country.
The woman has to provide the beis din with witnesses to document her allegations, but she explains they are all in France. The beis din has agreed to permit the witnesses to give their testimony via video conference using Skype.
Reichmann explains that generally, testimony is given in a courtroom in the presence of the court, witnesses and attorneys. However, Supreme Court Justice Asher Grunis has recently announced conference call testimony can be accepted in cases of need. There are of course guidelines pertaining to such testimony and this case meets those guidelines he explains.
The beis din in a rare move accepted attorney Reichmann’s request for Skype testimony providing the witnesses are Hebrew speaking and that the appropriate equipment is set up to permit the testimony without interference.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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One Response
Why should skype be any different than use of a telephone (wi-fi or land line)? And since women aren’t officially appearing in court anyways (they mere give information to the court but aren’t official “witnesses”), why should her lack of physical presence be an issue?
The only difference between skype and telephone, besides course, is in how they utilize the internet to transmit oral communications.
And if they both reside in France (meaning they need a French civil divorce to be recognized under French law), why isn’t a Beis Din in France involved?