Reply To: Enforcement of gittin in civil court custody cases in New York

Joesph and Littleknow are both correct that custody agreements VOLUNTARILY negotiated through a beis din should not be nullified by a civil court any more so than agreements reached via any other alternative dispute resolution procedure outside of a courtroom. However,in most states, a Judge can arbitrarily negate certain provisions of such agremeents if he/she concludes that it is not in the best interest of the minor child, even years later. Total separate, is the really poorly drafted language of some of these anti-Shariah statutes being pushed by the right wing Islamaphobics that could be used as the basis for negating even voluntarily negotiated religious agreements if a state court concludes the parties did not have equal negotiating ability or might have been coerced into accepting such agreemnt from a religious court (evn if stipulated to be volunarily when initially filed with the civil court).