Religious Tribunals in Democratic States: Lessons from the Israeli Rabbinical Courts

2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphna Hacker
Keyword(s):  
Minority Groups ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Cultural Survival ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Personal Law

In democratic countries where the law might be influenced by religious communities, family law cases can present one of the most sensitive and complex challenges. Religious laws governing personal status and the supervision of family relations are vital components of many religions and, in some cases, crucial to the cultural survival of the religious community. However, the family laws of some religions are discriminatory towards women, same-sex couples, people of other religions, and other groups. Currently, there is heated political and scholarly debate about the tension between the norms of multiculturalism, which dictate that religious communities be allowed to preserve their values and culture, including through autonomy over family law, and liberal norms prohibiting the discrimination that religious family law can perpetrate.One of the best known liberal advocates for restricting discriminatory cultural practices of minority groups was Susan Moller Okin. Okin maintained that many cultural minorities are more patriarchal than the surrounding culture and that the female members of the patriarchal culture might be much better off were the culture into which they were born to become extinct, if, that is, it could not be altered so as to uphold women's equality. She pointed to religious personal law as one example of a sphere in which patriarchal cultures strive to maintain autonomy at the cost of women's and girls' freedom and basic rights. Consistent with her view, nation states should not give legal autonomy over family matters to patriarchal minorities unless these minorities reform their religious laws so as not to discriminate against or impair the rights of women and girls.

scholarly journals Towards the Uniform Civil Code and Personal Laws in India: Gender Equality Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Alim
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Legal Issue ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Issue ◽  
National Integration ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Personal Law

Family life and personal law in India express together a complex blend of historical, philosophical and political aspects. Family law is setting out a framework for thinking about how personal life affects the most profound aspects of our lives and communities. But the political issues are facing problematic as politician are not in favor of this because fear of losing their vote bank. There is not only political issue but also legal issue. Again, in the matters of personal law segment pertaining to marriage, dowry, divorce, adoption, legitimacy, wills, and inheritance each individual of different backgrounds must appeal to their respective religious laws for guidance or rulings. In a modern secular India, balancing the claims of religious communities in secular nature has caused some difficult problems as a nation. The author will scrutinize how personal laws in secular India provides an inclusive look into the issues and challenges and what extent State can interfere in the matters of religion so as to remove the hindrance in the governance. This article will also analyze the basis of national integration by removing disparate reliability on law which has conflicting ideologies of gender equality.

scholarly journals REGISTRATION OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-117
Author(s):  
Sergej Flere
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
European Court ◽  
Religious Cultures ◽  
Venice Commission

In the text regimes of religious community registration by statutory law in European countries is reviewed. Although freedom of religion is declared as a pricniple at the European level and individual constitutional provisions, varied obstacles to registering religious communities are set. They may reflect fear of abuse of religion or the intent to safeguard the hegemony of a traditionally entrenched religion. Some of these obstacles are historically entrenched, whereas in post-Communist countries they have been set during democrratic reconstruction. States differ in conditions for registration, in bodies competent to act upon such supplications, procedures in reviewing them and in practice. A trend toward reaching the standards set by the Europeaн Convention on Human Rights may be discerned. The major policies of the Venice Commission regarding religious liberty and a number of standard setting judgments by the European Court of Human Rights, regarding religious liberty, particularly within the registration of religious groups are reviewed in continuation. These policies and judgments ensue from a strict vision of individual and collective religious rights and may collide with traditional religious cultures favouring an entrenched church, within various confessional traditions in Europe. These opinions and judgments present a limited but important instrument of affirmation of religious liberty and suppressing state arbitrariness in the treatment of religious freedom, particularly of minority groups and beliefs. Problems of Orthodox cultures are stressed.

scholarly journals http://habibiaislamicus.com/index.php/hirj/article/view/176

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66
Author(s):  
Zahida Parveen ◽  
◽  
Aijaz Ali Khoso
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Cultural Rights ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Partition Of India ◽  
Personal Law ◽  
Women Rights ◽  
Status Of Women

The particular nature of partition of India left the different religious communities with strained relations. The bloody backdrop made an imperative on the newly independent nation to sort out the majority-minority relationships amidst communities. The nation started with a centralizing tendency. The two nation theory based on religious identities shaped the post-independence politics to a great extent. Minority communities were given social and cultural rights but nonpolitical rights. As a part of cultural rights, these communities were left on their own with regard to marriage, divorce, inheritance etc. The nascent nation faced the dilemma of balancing the rights of different groups. As a result mere equality before law was substantiated by the right of members of minority communities to have the liberty to lead a life in accordance with their cultural practices. Islam has been focusing on chastity of the society and for this it describes rules and manners to be followed. On the other hand, West particularly in its modern capitalistic perspective gives its followers to lead a hedonistic life having no clutch on individual desires. West uses feministic sound louder and louder to portray itself the champion of Women rights but it has been observed that West through this campaign also tries to get its objectives against Islam. In this paper an attempt has been taken to highlighting how the West influences Muslim personal law in the subcontinent. At the same time, in this paper, an effort has also been made to resolve some repeated objections regarding the status of Women eruditely.

Ethnic Pluralism or Melting Pot?: The Dilemma of Rabbinical Adjudication in Israeli Family Law

1983 ◽  
Vol 18 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 348-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Zion Eliash
Keyword(s):  
Family Law ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Exclusive Jurisdiction ◽  
Ethnic Pluralism ◽  
Ecclesiastical Courts ◽  
Personal Law ◽  
The 19Th Century

Israeli family law is essentially governed by the personal law of the parties concerned since the religious affiliation of the litigants forms the basis for determination of the applicable personal law. This phenomenon is historically rooted in themilet(religious communities) system practised in the Ottoman Empire, which included Palestine until 1917. Ottoman law, regarding itself as an integral part of Moslem law, adopted the fundamental Islamic notion that its law applied to the “faithful” alone. Hence the judicial autonomy extended to “non-believers”, especially the Jewish and Christian communities. These were subject to their own ecclesiastical courts, administered and supervised by their respective religious heads and authorities. In the second half of the 19th century, with the development of contemporary legal systems, the Ottoman legal system underwent a transition from a personal law to a uniform territorial law in most legal fields. The jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, Moslem as well as Jewish and Christian, was restricted to purely religious and family matters. The British Mandate, which in 1917 replaced the Ottoman rule in Palestine, principally retained the existing legal order under which the ecclesiastical courts of the respective religious communities were invested with exclusive jurisdiction in matters of marriage and divorce as well as other matters of personal status.

Concluding Thoughts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Broyde
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Procedural Due Process ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Secular Society ◽  
General Society

This chapter provides concluding thoughts on the subject, stressing that this book is supportive of the idea of religious arbitration, and secular society benefits in many ways from allowing religious communities and their members to contractually resolve their commercial and family law disputes. Secular society must regulate arbitration by making sure that (1) people are truly voluntarily agreeing to such arbitration in a way that shows a true consent to religious arbitration; (2) such arbitrations are limited to monetary matters and not treading on the unique police powers of the general society; and (3) procedural due process is followed in arbitration hearings. Related to that is that religious arbitrators, to be successful, must integrate well the norms of the secular society that intermingles with their own religious community. Our law should be increasingly open to the idea that people can structure their relationships around a contract, rather than around sacrament.

Sharia Tribunals, Rabbinical Courts, and Christian Panels

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Broyde
Keyword(s):  
Dispute Resolution ◽  
Family Law ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Faith Based ◽  
American Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
Good For ◽  
Legal Frameworks

This book explores the rise of private arbitration in religious and other values-oriented communities, and it argues that secular societies should use secular legal frameworks to facilitate, enforce, and regulate religious arbitration, including those from Rabbinical Courts, Sharia Tribunals, and any faith-based arbitration tribunals. It covers the history of religious arbitration, the kinds of faith-based dispute resolution models currently in use, how the law should perceive them, and what the role of religious arbitration in the United States should be. Part I examines why religious individuals and communities are increasingly turning to private faith-based dispute resolution to arbitrate their disputes. It focuses on why religious communities feel disenfranchised from secular law, and particularly secular family law. Part II looks at why American law is so comfortable with faith-based arbitration, given its penchant for enabling parties to order their relationships and resolve their disputes using norms and values that are often different from and sometimes opposed to secular standards under the Federal Arbitration Act. Part III weighs the proper procedural, jurisdictional, and contractual limits of arbitration generally, and of religious arbitration particularly. It identifies and explains the reasonable limitations on religious arbitration, particularly in family law matters such as divorce. Part IV examines whether secular societies should facilitate effective, legally enforceable religious dispute resolution, and it argues that religious arbitration is not only good for the religious community itself, but that having many different avenues for faith-based arbitration that are properly limited is good for any pluralistic democracy inhabited by diverse faith groups.

scholarly journals Orthodox Christian Bulgarians Coping with Natural Disasters in the Pre-Modern Ottoman Balkans

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 367
Author(s):  
Raymond Detrez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
World View ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Ottoman Balkans

Premodern Ottoman society consisted of four major religious communities—Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, and Jews; the Muslim and Christian communities also included various ethnic groups, as did Muslim Arabs and Turks, Orthodox Christian Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs who identified, in the first place, with their religious community and considered ethnic identity of secondary importance. Having lived together, albeit segregated within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, for centuries, Bulgarians and Turks to a large extent shared the same world view and moral value system and tended to react in a like manner to various events. The Bulgarian attitudes to natural disasters, on which this contribution focuses, apparently did not differ essentially from that of their Turkish neighbors. Both proceeded from the basic idea of God’s providence lying behind these disasters. In spite of the (overwhelmingly Western) perception of Muslims being passive and fatalistic, the problem whether it was permitted to attempt to escape “God’s wrath” was coped with in a similar way as well. However, in addition to a comparable religious mental make-up, social circumstances and administrative measures determining equally the life conditions of both religious communities seem to provide a more plausible explanation for these similarities than cross-cultural influences.

The challenge of Populist Radical Right Parties to Europeanization – the cases of Estonia and Latvia, 2018-2021

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 143-175
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik ◽  
Peteris F. Timofejevs
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Member States ◽  
Legal Recognition ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
East European ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
Definition Of

Over the last two decades, family law has undergone changes in Western Europe, widening the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples. In addition, some East European countries offer a legal recognition of civil unions of same-sex couples, while others do not offer any legal recognition at all. This diversity in family law has been recently challenged by developments at the European level. It is argued here that this constitutes an adaptational pressure on those European Union (EU) member states that do not offer any or offer only formal recognition of same-sex couples. We examine two cases when member states faced such an adaptational pressure, namely Estonia and Latvia, focusing on the interplay of two types of factors. First is that of formal institutions which, due to their constitutional role or their expertise in the EU law, may act as facilitators of legal changes. On the other hand, there are also political actors which have tried to constrain such an adaptation. We examine here especially the role of two political parties which have made a considerable effort to oppose the change in the two countries. It is argued here that the ideological orientation of these parties explains, at least partly, their opposition to the ongoing Europeanization of family law. The paper concludes with a discussion of the main findings and their implications.

AUTONOMY OF FAMILY RELATIONS AND CIVIL PROCEDURE

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 277-293
Author(s):  
P.A. YAKUSHEV
Keyword(s):  
Russian Federation ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Family Relations ◽  
Legal Proceedings ◽  
Family Courts ◽  
Procedural Code ◽  
Separate System ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
Settlement Of Disputes

The article examines the ontology of the autonomy of family relations and its impact on the independence of family law as a branch of law. It is proved that the independence of family law as a branch of law, due by the nature of family relations and their autonomy, determines the need to regulate family relations by an independent codified normative legal act containing material norms of law. Thus, it is concluded that the branch autonomy does not determine the existence of a separate system of courts for the settlement of disputes connected with application of norms of law and an independent justice. Since all family disputes can be considered by courts of General jurisdiction within the existing types of legal proceedings (claim proceedings, special proceedings, writ proceedings), the creation of specialized family courts in the Russian Federation is impractical. However, for the proper consideration and resolution of family disputes, based on the specifics of their subject composition, the subject of dispute, the nature of relationships, degree of procedural activity of the court, it is necessary to supplement Civil procedural code of the Russian Federation separate chapters containing the rules governing the procedural peculiarities of consideration of some categories of family disputes.

Effective Participation of National Minorities in Public Affairs in Light of National Case Law

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Marko
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
National Courts ◽  
National Minorities ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Protection Mechanisms

Based on different concepts of nation-states, the article tries to demonstrate through the analysis of decisions of national courts that despite the same wording of the constitutional text, supreme and constitutional courts may come to totally differing conclusions in light of the constitutional history and doctrine of the respective country. The first part of the article gives an overview on case-law denying effective participation through non-recognition of ethnic diversity as a legal category, for instance through the ban of the formation of political parties along ethnic lines or through interpretative preemption of the legal status of minority groups. The second part of the article gives an overview of various legal mechanisms in order to enable, support, or even guarantee the representation and process-oriented effective participation of minorities in elected bodies, such as exemptions from threshold requirements in elections or reserved seats in parliament, and through cultural and territorial self-government regimes in those constitutional systems which legally recognize ethnic diversity. Nevertheless, the case-law demonstrates how difficult it remains to reconcile the notion of "effectiveness" with a positivistic and formal-reductionist understanding of terms such as equality, sovereignty, people or nation. The Lund Recommendations have served as an important guideline for a new, "communitarian" understanding of "effective" participation so that the author argues in conclusion that it requires more intra- and inter-disciplinary dialogue between law, politics and (legal) philosophy as well as between national and international minority protection mechanisms to "constitutionalize" this philosophy.

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