From Khan v. Hasan, determined Wednesday by the New York intermediate appellate courtroom (Judges Angela G. Iannacci, Cheryl E. Chambers, William G. Ford & Lillian Wan), a superb illustration of how American legislation usually treats non secular agreements:
The events have been married in a civil ceremony on March 2, 2016, and subsequently held a spiritual ceremony on September 12, 2016. The events’ non secular certificates of marriage, which was signed by two witnesses and an imam, however was not acknowledged, lists an quantity of $50,000 for “Meher.” The events assert {that a} Meher or Mahr settlement is an settlement between the events to a wedding, in accordance with Islamic legislation, that the husband can pay to the spouse a specified sum within the occasion of a divorce.
The events ultimately divorced, and the husband sought to put aside the Mahr; the courtroom agreed:
“It’s with out query that when courts should contact upon questions of non secular issues, they might not take into account non secular doctrine.” “[H]owever, the [United States] Supreme Court docket, in holding {that a} State might undertake any strategy to resolving non secular disputes which doesn’t entail consideration of doctrinal issues, particularly accredited using the impartial rules of legislation strategy as per constitutional limitations. This strategy contemplates the appliance of goal, well-established rules of secular legislation to the dispute, thus allowing judicial involvement to the extent that it may be completed in purely secular phrases.”
Home Relations Regulation § 236(B)(3) states that “[a]n settlement by the events, made earlier than or through the marriage, shall be legitimate and enforceable in a matrimonial motion if such settlement is in writing, subscribed by the events, and acknowledged or confirmed within the method required to entitle a deed to be recorded.” “[A]n unacknowledged settlement is invalid and unenforceable in a matrimonial motion.”
Right here, pursuant to the impartial rules of legislation strategy, the Supreme Court docket correctly decided that the Mahr settlement was unenforceable for lack of correct acknowledgment, as it will be improper and unconstitutional to deal with a Mahr settlement otherwise than different non secular or nonreligious nuptial agreements by way of procedural necessities….
Appears fairly proper to me. That the settlement was pursuant to Islamic legislation neither retains it from being enforced when it is legitimate beneath state legislation, nor permits it to be enforced when it is invalid beneath state legislation. (Agreements that embody non secular phrases that require non secular interpretation are unenforceable by secular courts on these grounds, however right here the issue was totally different.) For extra, see my Spiritual Regulation (Particularly Islamic Regulation) in American Courts.
David W. Teeter represents the husband.
