Lately, our office had a petition from a foreign national, an adult who lives in Brazil with his biological father, as he claims, who is allegedly an Israeli citizen and therefore he asked us to apply for him Israeli citizenship, being the son of an Israeli. They had no documents except for the father’s I.D. number. Our office conducted investigation in order to base the father’s claim of Israeli citizenship, and afterwards we decided to sue for fatherhood’s recognition for the son at the Israeli family court. Since the applicants are living abroad and because of different limitations they couldn’t come to Israel, we petitioned for the fatherhood DNA test to be carried out according to genetic test procedure abroad. Already in the first stages, the respondent (the State of Israel) tried to create problems and demanded the test of both biological parents in Brazil. Since the parents are no longer married and considering the mother’s decline to a test, as well as the high costs of an additional test, our office managed to convince the court in an exceptional way, to deviate from the rule which obliges both parents to undergo a test, and after we expanded the pleas, we got a ruling in our favor in which the court would order the State of Israel to accept our claim and to settle for the father’s test alone.
