The Sceptic Blog

1.  It seems to be being suggested with increasing frequency that Jewish people confronted with planning permission issues in relation to property owned by other Jews are not allowed to follow the planning permission procedures, but must arbitrate through a Beis Din.

2.  This is nonsense (and, in so far as it is propounded by the Botei Din, distastefully self-serving nonsense).

3.  The law of moiser (“informing”) has two aspects.

4.  First, there is a Biblical requirement to litigate in the Jewish courts and not in the civil courts (technically, nothing to do with moiser, but often wrapped up in assertions of its application).  That is a firm prohibition of Jewish law.  It gives way only where the Jewish courts are not competent to deal with the matter.  So in the diaspora, anything criminal or with a criminal aspect goes straight to the secular authorities and courts; while even a financial dispute will be sent to the secular courts by the Beis Din if a party refuses to accept Beis Din jurisdiction or to comply with their orders.

5.  Secondly, there is the prohibition against handing Jews or their property over to wicked Romans or Cossacks – or the contemporary equivalent from time to time – for unjust treatment.

6.  There is, however, another little matter that is sometimes conveniently forgotten – dino d’malchuso dino.  Jews are obliged by Jewish law to obey the law of the land: and in so far as this cannot be enforced by the religious courts it can be enforced through the secular courts.

7.  With this background in mind, planning permission can be analysed as follows.

8.  It is the law of the UK that I may not build certain structures without the local authority’s planning permission.  If I do, I have broken UK law and Jewish law.  That is not a matter on which the Beis Din is competent in UK law: the Beis Din can arbitrate under the Arbitration Act, but that is appropriate for disputes about inter-personal liability, not for enforcement of breaches of the law.  Since the Botei Din are not competent to deal with the matter, it is halachically permissible to use the secular courts.

9.  As for moiser, the planning authorities are not wicked Cossacks arbitrarily pinching people’s property: they are a branch of law enforcement, enforcing the law that forms part of the social contract to comply with which Jewish residents are bound by UK and Jewish law.

10.  So to tell the local authority about a breach of planning permission is not halachically problematic.  Indeed, it is an obligation, because when so-called religious Jews flout the law of the land they create a chilul Hashem.

11.  Equally, the idea that I may not participate in the statutory planning permission process by registering objections when asked by the local authority what I think about a neighbour’s plans is absurd.

12.  Unhappily, this is another example of ways in which purportedly religious Jews are prepared to misuse and manipulate concepts of Jewish law to permit them to behave unlawfully and unethically and to line their own pockets at other people’s expense.