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Canada Supreme Court to Consider Interfering With Religion – Jewish Divorce Proceedings

By Hilary White
 
OTTAWA, December 4, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a request by a Montreal woman to uphold a lower court decision awarding her damages after her ex-husband refused for 15 years, to provide her with a Jewish writ of divorce or ghet. The case has attracted the attention of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that is intervening because of the potential impact on the way religious groups and practices are treated by the courts.

In September 2005 the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled that even though the woman’s ex-husband had signed a pre-nuptial agreement to go before a Montreal rabbinical court immediately upon issuance of a provisional decree of civil divorce, the federal Divorce Act does not give courts jurisdiction to force anyone to issue a ghet, a purely religious decree.

For 15 years, Stephanie Bruker’s ex-husband, Jessel Marcovitz, withheld the ghet that would have allowed her to re-marry according to the traditional Jewish faith. Bruker was 31 when the couple divorced civilly in 1981 and was 47 when her husband issued the ghet.

In September 2005, the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned a lower court’s decision against Marcovitz ordering him to pay his ex-wife damages of $47,500 plus interest going back to 1995.

The Canadian Jewish news reports that Bruker’s lawyer, Alan Stein, said the Supreme Court’s ruling will have far-reaching consequences for all Canadians, because it will affect the validity of any agreement of a religious or moral nature.

Justice Allan Hilton of the Quebec Court of Appeals wrote in the decision to overturn, “the substance of the former husband’s obligation is religious in nature…and an alleged breach of the obligation is not enforceable by the secular courts to obtain damages or specific performance.”

Hilton wrote in the decision that such intervention of secular courts in religious affairs would also relate to such cases as women not being able to be clergy (as in the Catholic Church) or same-sex couples not being allowed to marry in a religious ceremony.

The significant danger that the Supreme Court will rule that the courts may intervene in religious affairs has prompted the Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses to ask for, and receive, intervenor status in the case.

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