Today's Weird (but true) legal cases continues last night's insight to chassidus by looking at the matter of Agudas Chasidei Chabad v. Russian Federation.
In this matter, Chabad filed suit against the Russian Federation and various Russian state agencies (the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library and the Russian State Military Archives) seeking to reclaim various seforim which the Russian government had refused to turn over to Chabad. The suit was originally commenced in 2004 in US District Court for the Central District of California. However, since the suit arose under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), the case was transferred to the US District Court for the District of Columbia (which provides that these actions should be heard in the DC District Court).
Tonight's post focuses on the first of two decisions which have been published involving this lawsuit. The first was the 2006 decision of District Court Judge Royce Lamberth which determined the defendants motion to dismiss, the second decision is the 2008 Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit decision in the appeal of Judge Lamberth's decision.
The initial decision (published at 466 F.Supp.2d 6 (DDC 2006) is a fascinating read for other than legal reasons as it examines the history of Chabad starting with its creation in 1775 by the Alter Rebbe, R' Schneur Zalman and continuing to the present date (although it mercifully does not talk about the divisions in Chabad since the death of the Seventh Rebbe).
The crux of the decision revolved around two sets of documents which Chabad sought to recover, the "Library" which consists of more than 12,000 seforim and 381 manuscripts and the Archive which consists of over 25,000 pages of the various Rebbe's handwritten teachings and correspondence.
In 1915, the Fifth Rebbe (who was fleeing from the advancing German army) took some of the books from the Library and put the rest into storage. Unfortunately, from that point forward the Library was never returned to Jewish hands as it passed from agency to agency during the period of the Bolshevik revolution to the present.
Meanwhile, the various Rebbe continued to carry the archive with them as they fled from Russia to Latvia and then to Poland. Then in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the Sixth Rebbe fled to the United States, however he was unable to bring the archive with him. The archive was seized by the Nazis and moved to a Gestapo controlled castle in Germany. Then, in 1945, the archive was taken by the Soviet army as "trophy documents" and transferred to Russia. Thereafter in the early 1990's Chabad attempted to obtain the archive through various administrative methods which at times seemed promising, including a November 1991 Order mandating its return to Chabad. However, this order was later reversed by an appeals court which ordered that the archive be turned over to the Russian Jewish Library. This Order was then reversed by the Deputy Chief State Arbiter of the Russian Federation who nullified the prior orders which had required the Russian State Library to turn over the archive.
In seeking the return of the library and the archive, Chabad argued that the FSIA's expropriation exception provided the Court with jurisdiction to entertain Chabad's suit against a foreign government. As noted by the court, this exception applies when: (1) “rights in property” are at issue; (2) the property was “taken in violation of international law”; and (3) “the property at issue (or any property exchanged for it) [is] ... ‘owned or operated by an agency or instrumentality of the foreign state and that agency or instrumentality’ engages in commercial activity in the United States.
In analyzing whether it could maintain jurisdiction over the suit, Judge Lamberth looked at the claims for the archive and library separately. In relation to the library claim, the court ruled that since it belonged to a Soviet citizen when it was seized in the 1920s, the taking did not violate international law. However, in regards to the archive which was seized by the Soviet army in 1945, the court explained that:
The defendants also argued that the FSIA should not apply since the act of state doctrine (which presumes the validity of acts of foreign nations within their borders) purportedly immunized their actions. The court disagreed with this conclusion in relation to the archive documents, stating:
The court noted in conclusory fashion that the acts of state doctrine would bar the court from considering the taking of the Library.
Next week, Wednesday's Weird (but true) legal cases will examine the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit's 2008 opinion in relation to the appeal from Judge Lamberth's order.
If you have seen this post being carried on another site such as JBlog, please feel free to click here to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!
In this matter, Chabad filed suit against the Russian Federation and various Russian state agencies (the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communication, the Russian State Library and the Russian State Military Archives) seeking to reclaim various seforim which the Russian government had refused to turn over to Chabad. The suit was originally commenced in 2004 in US District Court for the Central District of California. However, since the suit arose under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), the case was transferred to the US District Court for the District of Columbia (which provides that these actions should be heard in the DC District Court).
Tonight's post focuses on the first of two decisions which have been published involving this lawsuit. The first was the 2006 decision of District Court Judge Royce Lamberth which determined the defendants motion to dismiss, the second decision is the 2008 Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit decision in the appeal of Judge Lamberth's decision.
The initial decision (published at 466 F.Supp.2d 6 (DDC 2006) is a fascinating read for other than legal reasons as it examines the history of Chabad starting with its creation in 1775 by the Alter Rebbe, R' Schneur Zalman and continuing to the present date (although it mercifully does not talk about the divisions in Chabad since the death of the Seventh Rebbe).
The crux of the decision revolved around two sets of documents which Chabad sought to recover, the "Library" which consists of more than 12,000 seforim and 381 manuscripts and the Archive which consists of over 25,000 pages of the various Rebbe's handwritten teachings and correspondence.
In 1915, the Fifth Rebbe (who was fleeing from the advancing German army) took some of the books from the Library and put the rest into storage. Unfortunately, from that point forward the Library was never returned to Jewish hands as it passed from agency to agency during the period of the Bolshevik revolution to the present.
Meanwhile, the various Rebbe continued to carry the archive with them as they fled from Russia to Latvia and then to Poland. Then in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, the Sixth Rebbe fled to the United States, however he was unable to bring the archive with him. The archive was seized by the Nazis and moved to a Gestapo controlled castle in Germany. Then, in 1945, the archive was taken by the Soviet army as "trophy documents" and transferred to Russia. Thereafter in the early 1990's Chabad attempted to obtain the archive through various administrative methods which at times seemed promising, including a November 1991 Order mandating its return to Chabad. However, this order was later reversed by an appeals court which ordered that the archive be turned over to the Russian Jewish Library. This Order was then reversed by the Deputy Chief State Arbiter of the Russian Federation who nullified the prior orders which had required the Russian State Library to turn over the archive.
In seeking the return of the library and the archive, Chabad argued that the FSIA's expropriation exception provided the Court with jurisdiction to entertain Chabad's suit against a foreign government. As noted by the court, this exception applies when: (1) “rights in property” are at issue; (2) the property was “taken in violation of international law”; and (3) “the property at issue (or any property exchanged for it) [is] ... ‘owned or operated by an agency or instrumentality of the foreign state and that agency or instrumentality’ engages in commercial activity in the United States.
In analyzing whether it could maintain jurisdiction over the suit, Judge Lamberth looked at the claims for the archive and library separately. In relation to the library claim, the court ruled that since it belonged to a Soviet citizen when it was seized in the 1920s, the taking did not violate international law. However, in regards to the archive which was seized by the Soviet army in 1945, the court explained that:
[t]he Soviet Army's 1945 seizure and appropriation of the Archive from its Nazi captors as spoils of war was also a taking in violation of international law. The Archive was neither taken nor held for a public purpose, as the Soviet Union did not make it available for public use and long denied that it even had it. And regardless who the legal owner of the Archive was at the time, the Soviet Union neither provided nor offered compensation for it. This taking took place in Poland after the Sixth Rebbe had become a Latvian citizen and Chabad had been formed as a New York corporation, defeating any possible argument that this matter is outside the purview of international law.
The defendants also argued that the FSIA should not apply since the act of state doctrine (which presumes the validity of acts of foreign nations within their borders) purportedly immunized their actions. The court disagreed with this conclusion in relation to the archive documents, stating:
The act of state doctrine does not apply to Chabad's claims concerning the Archive. The Nazi taking of Jewish property during the Holocaust was manifestly illegal. It is not clear whether the Soviet Army's taking of the Archive as spoils of war at the conclusion of World War II was an official government act, but irrespective, it occurred in Poland and not in Soviet territory. Were this Court to eventually decide in Chabad's favor, declaring the taking of the Archive a violation of international law, this ruling would not have the effect of declaring illegal any official Soviet or Russian action in its own territory.
The court noted in conclusory fashion that the acts of state doctrine would bar the court from considering the taking of the Library.
Next week, Wednesday's Weird (but true) legal cases will examine the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit's 2008 opinion in relation to the appeal from Judge Lamberth's order.
If you have seen this post being carried on another site such as JBlog, please feel free to click here to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!
No comments:
Post a Comment