The legal question is whether the Supreme Court sitting as the High Court of Justice should intervene in the ruling of the Great Rabbinical Court or not. The husband (“respondent 3”) owned an apartment and had no intention of sharing the ownership with the petitioner in a divorce case, which was first submitted to the Regional Rabbinical Court.
A woman petitioned the article 55 Special Tribunal, which decides whether a case is of personal status and thus within the exclusive jurisdiction of a Religious Court, for review of the Rabbinical Court’s decision to allow her husband to receive rent from a property belonging to the plaintiff. The Rabbinical Court exercised jurisdiction pursuant to Article 51 and 53 of the Palestine Order in Council 1922, which states that “suits regarding marriage” or “matters of marriage” are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the religious courts.
