The Judge and the Judge, and we mentioned that a letter from a judge to a judge is of two types: a letter regarding what has been established with him to the judge so that he may rule upon it, and a letter regarding what he has ruled upon so that it may be executed.

The Shaykh : The judge and the judge. We mentioned that a letter from a judge to a judge is of two types: a letter regarding what has been established with him to the judge so that he may rule upon it, and a letter regarding what he has ruled upon so that it may be executed. You might ask, for example, what is the benefit of writing what has been established with him for the other judge to rule upon? We say the benefit is that the ruling may be difficult for the writing judge, and therefore he writes regarding the establishment of the fact. This happens frequently now in the issue of the triple divorce. Those who used to write the triple divorce in the past would write that he ruled that the wife was divorced with a final divorce (baynunah kubra) and she is not lawful for him. But when the fatwa that the triple divorce is one divorce became common, they began to write only the establishment of the fact and left the ruling open for the muftis. Similarly, if a case is established with a judge, he writes to the second judge regarding it so that he may rule upon it, because the ruling is doubtful to him, or he sees that ruling as he sees it is not beneficial, so he writes to the judge regarding what has been established with him so that he may rule upon it. As for the second type, what he has ruled upon so that it may be executed, it also has a purpose, because he may be weak in execution, so he writes to another judge greater than him who is able to execute it. It has also been mentioned to us that the fuqaha (may Allah have mercy on them) said that one does not write regarding what has been established with him for the other to rule upon unless there is a distance of qasr (shortening of prayer) between them, unlike when he writes regarding what he has ruled upon for execution, which is permissible even if they are in the same country. However, the correct view is that it is permissible to write to a judge regarding what has been established with him for him to rule upon, even if they are in the same country. This does not harm the practice of people today, as you see one court having several judges.

The questioner : ...

The Shaykh : He read it to the chain of narration.