MK (Bayit Yehudi) Yoni Chetboun explains his awareness of the sorely overloaded beis din system in Israel. He documents the lack of dayanim and batei din, which result in overcrowding and unacceptable delays in handling cases, which are blamed on the rabbonim and dayanim. As such, he is pushing the “Dayanim Law” which has been submitted to the Ministerial Law Committee.

If passed into law, it will empower the Minister of Justice and President of the Chief Rabbinate Supreme Court to determine how many dayanim are required in the different Chief Rabbinate judicial regions. It is his hope that by doing so, large population areas will receive additional dayanim towards expediting a beis din’s ability to process waiting cases.

The bill is also backed by Bayit Yehudi colleague MK Shuli Moalem-Refaeli, Yaakov Asher (Yahadut Hatorah) and Peninah Tamanu-Shata (Yesh Atid). The Chief Rabbinate of Israel is on board as well.

Chetboun reports to the committee that the nation’s rabbinical courts open a staggering 84,000 cases annually and each dayan must address 900 cases annually! Clearly this cannot result in justice or due process by any stretch of the imagination. There is also the issue of the many dayanim whom have retired or left for others reasons and have not been replaced. Even during the tenure of former Chief Rabbi Yonah Metzger, the latter often attempted to highlight the critical shortage of dayanim. Former Rishon L’Tzion Rabbi Shlomo Amar Shlita also worked tirelessly to appoint additional dayanim but was often blocked by the secular judicial appointment committee headed by the justice minister.

Chetboun feels that this is why the rabbinical courts are looked upon with such disdain since they are understaffed and overburdened.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)