A blog post published today by Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll in the Times of Israel discusses a case in which a local rabbinical court (beit din) in Tzfat, Israel granted a divorce to a woman on behalf of her comatose husband. An unrelated party appealed the decision, and the same local court rejected his appeal on the grounds that he had no standing. He then appealed again to the High Rabbinical Court, which agreed to take up the case and reversed the lower court's award of a divorce.
Ms. Jaskoll argues that the high court should never have heard the appeal from the unrelated party:
Asking the rabbinical court to reverse a decision is really only the province of the interested parties — for example, if the man were to come out of his coma, he might have a legitimate basis for filing an appeal. Or if the Tzfat court itself were to have stumbled upon new information — it might have the basis for reopening its own decision.
However, this appeal was filed by a disinterested party — someone with no connection to the comatose man, the divorced woman, or even the Tzfat Beit Din. Moreover, his petition was rejected immediately by the Tzfat Beit Din for exactly this reason — his lack of standing in the case.
(Indeed, there are areas in Halacha where a disinterested person can get involved. Most notably, the case of “rodef,” where Halacha goes so far as to permit one to kill another party for the sake of saving the life of a third party. Also — on the other end of the life-or-death spectrum — when one accepts a Shabbat gift on behalf of a third party. Both of these examples entail a clear benefit to the third party. There is no reason, however, to think that a disinterested person’s dislike of a court-mandated divorce should have any impact whatsoever.)
All logic and jurisprudence suggests the appeal should have been thrown out by the High Rabbinical Court.
Is there, indeed, a notion of "standing to appeal" in Halacha? Are courts restricted from reviewing other courts' past decisions (or, indeed, their own) unless someone appeals, and must such appeals come from someone who can demonstrate a material interest in the case?
Important notes:
It's quite possible that there are rules of procedure specific to the Israeli national rabbinical court system that apply here. I am not asking about those but about halacha that is independent of any particular institution.
Relatedly, I am not asking for analysis of this case in particular, or even about this area of law (divorce), but for evaluation of the general claim about halacha of court procedure made in this blog post.
I am only interested in answers that cite halachic sources.
