Our Haifa Bar Association was established in 2007 by former Israeli Police Department for Combating International Organized Crime and public prosecutor in criminal courts, lawyer Alex Raskin.
We have accumulated extensive experience in the return of abducted children, in handling complex family cases, in obtaining Israeli citizenship, and in claims against the Ministry of Internal Affairs, police, banks and other administrative bodies. Our lawyers have handled high-profile transport and criminal cases.
We, as lawyers in Israel, defend the rights of our fellow citizens both within the country and abroad. We successfully represent the interests of foreign clients in Israel.
Our bar in Haifa actively works with foreign individuals and legal entities in all Israeli courts on issues of legalization of decisions of foreign courts, international commercial, inheritance and private disputes.
We are rightfully considered one of the successful Russian-speaking bar associations in Israel.
In Israel, within the Magistrates' Courts, there are special family courts operating on the basis of family law. Family law judges specialize only in family law and do not preside over any other cases. Israel has sixteen family courts located in different parts of the country.
Due to the fact that people professing Judaism, Christianity and Islam live in Israel, there are religious courts in the country that have the right, among other things, to consider family matters.
The interests of children are at the forefront of Israeli family law. This is the principle that guides the family court. The family court judge has the right to deviate from the requirements of official law. This happens especially often in situations where a family dispute is related to the interests of children.
The most common categories of family disputes heard by Israeli family courts are:
Since in Israel divorces between Jews are of a religious nature, such divorces are the prerogative of the Rabbinical court. If one of the spouses is not Jewish, the claim for divorce will be heard by the family court. A request for divorce can be filed either with the consent of the parties or with the objection of one of the spouses.
In Israel, alimony for minor children is not assigned as a percentage of the parent’s income, as is customary, say, in Russia or Ukraine. In Israel, alimony is assigned in a specific amount. When determining the amount of child support for minor children, the family court takes into account the financial situation of the parents, routine and emergency expenses for the children, the amount of time the child spends with each parent, and several other factors. In the event of unforeseen life changes that affect the financial situation of each parent, a request may be made to the family court to increase or decrease the amount of child support. It is important to note that a parent receiving child support does not have the right to refuse child support for a minor child.
The law on property relations between spouses provides for the complete division of jointly acquired property in the event of their divorce, including future pensions, compensation for dismissals and various financial programs. The law provides that property received by one of the spouses during marriage as a gift or inheritance, as well as property that he had before marriage, is not subject to division. In reality, everything is completely different. L and S were married. L inherited an apartment in a prestigious area of Haifa. The couple lived in this apartment for about 15 years and then decided to divorce. The family court ruled that half of this apartment belonged to C on the basis that during a long family life, expensive repairs were made from the joint funds of the spouses and the maintenance of the apartment was paid for.
A precedent is the decision of the Supreme Court, which found that before marriage the husband owned an apartment that was registered in his name.
The couple had been married in this apartment for 20 years. Based on the fact that the wife sincerely believed that this apartment was the property of the family and subsequently hoped, by selling this apartment and adding jointly acquired money to the money received, to buy a new joint apartment, the Supreme Court ruled that part of the apartment belonged to the wife.
After the spouses divorce, the common child remains with one of the parents, usually the mother. What should such a parent do if he wants to move with his child for permanent residence to another country? The first thing such a parent should know is that he cannot remove the child without the consent of the other parent or a family court order. Otherwise, the actions of such a parent may be considered child abduction. The consent of the second parent can be formalized by drawing up an appropriate agreement, which must be approved by the court. If there is no such consent, then the parent applying to take the child to another country for permanent residence must file a claim in the family court with a request to allow the child to emigrate. It is important to emphasize that the child’s citizenship of the country to which he plans to move does not exempt the parent from obtaining court permission. There is no law in Israel regulating the emigration of a child. The court considers each specific case individually and subjectively.
We focus heavily on prenuptial agreements, cohabitation agreements, divorce agreements, and any other type of family agreement. As a rule, such contracts and agreements are the key to preventing family disputes in the future.
A prenuptial agreement can protect the spouses' rights to their property. If the contract is concluded before marriage, it can be certified both by a notary and in court. If the parties have already entered into marriage, the agreement will only be valid if it is approved by the court.
It makes sense to enter into a cohabitation agreement for couples in a civil marriage, including same-sex families. A cohabitation agreement approved by the family court will enable such a couple to receive everything that is due to an official family.
Lawsuits in family matters tend to drag on for a long time, and legal disputes with mutual accusations often turn former spouses into bitter enemies.
The way to avoid this is to draw up a divorce agreement. The agreement provides for all the necessary factors: who will have the children and the procedure for the other party to meet with them, the rights and responsibilities of parents in raising them, the amount of alimony, the procedure for dividing joint property, including real estate, and many other important issues.
Practice shows that when drawing up a divorce agreement, the parties often receive significantly more than under a court decision. It is also known that divorce agreements are respected by the parties better than court orders. In a divorce by drawing up a contract, there are no winners and losers, but there are two parties that respect each other.
Our family law attorneys have represented the interests of our clients in high-profile cases involving immigration and the return of abducted children, the enforcement of divorce agreements concluded in other states, and the division of real estate located in different countries.
Our lawyers have handled complex court cases related to the recognition of the validity of a will and the division of inherited property.
In Israeli civil courts, procedural law is governed by the Civil Procedure Law. Israeli civil law uses the Evidence Law.
Substantive civil law consists of separate laws such as: The Law on Defamation, the Law on Causing Damage, the Law on Real Estate, the Law on Copyright Protection, the Law on Inheritance, the Law on Movable Property and many other laws.
When considering disputes in civil cases, Israeli courts are guided by the English model of legal proceedings, the essence of which is an adversarial process.
Civil cases are resolved on the basis of the competition between the parties themselves, the interested parties themselves proving the disputed facts, as well as the laws that, in their opinion, should be applied. This makes the consideration of civil cases fundamentally different from the consideration of criminal cases, in which the public prosecutor must prove the guilt of the accused.
When considering a civil case, the parties cannot use evidence that has not been provided to the other party in advance.
The Israeli civil court system consists of the Supreme, District and Magistrates' Courts.
The Courts Act defines the jurisdiction of each court. Jurisdiction in civil cases of the District and World War II is determined by the amount of the civil claim. Each authority also hears appeals from decisions of lower authorities.
The Supreme Court of Israel, in addition to hearing appeals, can also sit as the High Court of Justice (High Court of Justice).
The following courts are also part of the magistrates' courts: family court, small claims court, local affairs court
We handle the most complex cases involving libel. We defended the honest name of ordinary people, doctors, lawyers, famous businessmen and public figures.
We handle all kinds of claims for breach of contractual obligations, including investment agreements, real estate purchase and sale agreements, partnership agreements and many others.
We represent the interests of foreign citizens and companies in Israeli courts related to the execution of various contracts and obligations. Our lawyers have accumulated extensive positive experience in collecting debts and amounts of property damage caused in other countries in Israel.
We are engaged in giving legal force in Israel to the decisions of foreign civil courts and arbitrations and their execution.
Due to the development of international economic integration, the number of decisions of foreign courts and arbitrations against Israeli legal entities and individuals has increased. In order to execute such decisions on the territory of Israel, it is necessary to obtain an order from an Israeli court to legalize the decision of a foreign court on the territory of Israel.
The main law protecting intellectual property in Israel is the Copyright Law of 2007, as amended in 2011, based on the Universal Copyright Convention of 1972.
Copyright law protects literary, dramatic, cinematographic, artistic, photographic and musical works recorded in any form. Copyright infringement is not only grounds for filing a civil lawsuit, but also grounds for initiating criminal proceedings. Copyright law provides for compensation of one hundred thousand shekels even without the need to prove damage.
Copyright law does not protect ideas, mathematical terms, methods of execution, facts, news of the day, or laws. In addition, in accordance with the Copyright Law, it is not an infringement of copyright to use intellectual property for study, research, criticism, or journalistic reporting. Also, actions such as a photograph or drawing of intellectual property located in a public place are not copyright infringement.
+Copyright belongs to the person who first made the product. +The employer is the owner of the copyright in the product that his employee manufactured as a performance of his duties.
In all of the above and other cases, the parties may enter into an agreement between themselves on the transfer of copyright.
Copyright in Israel is valid for the entire life of its owner and for another 70 years after his death. If the work was published anonymously or under a pseudonym, then copyright will last for seventy years from the date of publication.
If the work of an anonymous author has not been published, then copyright will last seventy years from the date of creation of this work.
If during this period the anonymous author makes his name public, then copyright will remain in force for another seventy years after his death.
Our lawyers have handled complex legal cases involving forgery of books by famous authors.
We won in the District Court and then in the Supreme Court the case to protect artists who, on the instructions of their employer, the owner of an art gallery in Safed, copied paintings from the Internet. Our lawyers have won lawsuits for violation of publishing contracts.
Since 2007, our board has successfully represented the legitimate interests of persons in the Israeli Ministry of Internal Affairs:
Eligible for repatriation in accordance with the Law of Return.
Those who have received a refusal to repatriate from the consul on the basis of a criminal record.
In complex cases of repatriation, including establishing the right to repatriation using DNA testing.
In cases of repatriation of a same-sex couple
We help non-citizen spouses obtain legal status in Israel (STUPRO) on the basis of marriage to an Israeli citizen.
We help common-law spouses obtain a residence permit and status of permanent resident of Israel (STUPRO) on the basis of de facto marital relations (civil marriage) with an Israeli citizen.
We help same-sex couples pass STUPRO.
We provide legal support to single elderly parents of an Israeli citizen in order to obtain a residence permit in Israel.
Our lawyers have accumulated successful experience in solving problems of legalization in Israel for elderly parents of Israeli citizens whose other children live separately from them in other countries.
In cases of our disagreement with the decisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, we, in accordance with the law, have the right to protest these decisions by filing an appeal to a higher official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and then to the Court of Appeal under the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The decision of the Court of Appeal may be appealed to the regional court.
We file and successfully conduct appeals against decisions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to deprive of citizenship.
Our lawyers have extensive positive experience in representing the interests of persons refused by the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Supreme, Regional and other courts and tribunals of Israel,
We undertake to conduct only those businesses in the success of which we ourselves believe.
We believe that a person should receive what is due to him by law.
We know that the fate of people depends on our experience and professionalism.
We make every effort to ensure that a person receives what the law allows him to receive.
Israel is a closed state, replenishing the ranks of its citizens only through new repatriates, who, in the very first minutes of arrival in the country at Ben Gurion Airport, receive citizenship of the State of Israel.
In Israel, citizenship cannot be obtained through labor or business immigration. In Israel, there is no way to obtain citizenship or residence permit by investing in the country's economy.
At the same time, in Israel, like in any other democratic country, there is humanitarian immigration.
Humanitarian grounds for obtaining a residence permit and then citizenship include family unification, the unification of an elderly single parent with their Israeli citizen children, the unification of a parent with a child conscript soldier, the acquisition of Israeli citizenship by the great-grandson of a Jew (fourth generation) and some other cases .
The difficulties encountered on the way of applicants for obtaining Israeli citizenship are due to the fact that Israel, like any other country, is trying to identify fictitious grounds for obtaining citizenship. That is why the process of legalization and obtaining citizenship in Israel is protracted.
It is believed that there is no criminal code in Israeli criminal law. De jure this is so. But de facto, Israeli criminal law uses the Punishment Law, which consists of 505 articles describing the objective and subjective aspects of various crimes and determining punishments for committing specific crimes. It is clear that the Israeli Penal Law not only differs little from the Criminal Code, but, in essence, is what it is.
The skill of a criminal lawyer depends entirely on his ability to interpret criminal law.
Criminal law in Israel includes the Criminal Procedure Law, the Evidence Law, the Extradition Law, the Juvenile Law, the Mentally Ill Law and many other laws. As a rule, lawyers who specialize in criminal law and participate in other categories of litigation achieve greater results. These lawyers are more adept at questioning witnesses, using the Evidence Act more professionally, and employing other specific skills that only a criminal defense lawyer can master.
Legal proceedings in Israel are adversarial. Its essence is that the judge does not hold the entire criminal case in his hands, but accepts only the evidence that the parties provide him.
The higher the qualifications of a lawyer who specializes in criminal law, the more difficult it is for the prosecution to submit evidence of the accused’s guilt to the court. In other words, the defense attorney and the prosecutor compete to present evidence to the judge.
A lawyer who has a thorough knowledge of criminal law can motivate the court to convince the court of the illegality of this or that evidence and thereby change the course of the trial.
This model of conducting a criminal case came to Israeli criminal law from English legislation.
Criminal defense attorneys not only defend the accused, but also represent victims under the Victims' Rights Act. This law provides victims with broad rights to participate in criminal proceedings. In some categories of cases, in order to conclude a deal between the prosecutor's office and the accused, it is necessary to obtain the consent of the victim. Criminal defense attorneys participate in the signing of agreements between the prosecutor's office and the state witness.
Our team has accumulated extensive legal experience in defending our clients in criminal cases. We are recognized specialists in criminal law. In preparation for trial, we analyze evidence both in terms of its significance and its legality. Thanks to the fact that lawyer Alex Raskin worked as a state prosecutor in criminal cases, we understand the strategy of the prosecutor's office in conducting a specific criminal case. For each criminal case, we conduct a simulation and find the only correct tactics for conducting it.
Our lawyers, specialists in criminal law, have participated in socially significant criminal cases on charges of drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, causing death, arson, fraud, robbery at a bank and in tax cases.
We are confident that every person, regardless of what he is accused of, has the right to a fair trial and to the protection of his legitimate interests. No one can be convicted without full proof of his guilt.
The credo of our criminal defense lawyers is that the innocent should not be punished.
