The expert was presented with clarification questions and was even questioned about his opinion.
- The Objections' Arguments
- The opponents claim that the late will has no validity as an oral will.
- The opponents claim that the deceased was a sick woman, especially in the recent period before her death, and that she would forget many things and would not answer what was asked.
At the time of the will and at the time of the meeting with the notary, the deceased did not function and did not communicate with those around her. In their opinion, the deceased did not have the mental and emotional capacity to decide to change her previous will. On the same day that the mitzvah was spoken, she was rushed to the hospital in Nazareth in very serious condition, after suffering from vomiting, abdominal pain and chills for several days, and from there she was transferred to Rambam Hospital in a septic shock with multi-system insufficiency.
- They also claim that P. was involved in the drafting of the will. According to them, P. was the one who summoned the notary to the deceased who was the beneficiary according to the will, and she was the one who told him that the deceased was interested in changing her previous will. They claim that the will, which is claimed to be a will of a bad person, has no validity, since it corresponds to the wishes of daughter P., who was involved in its drafting, she was the one who paid him his salary and also told him what to mention in the memorandum. Therefore, she cannot be a witness to an oral will, and as a result, the condition of two witnesses to the will has not been met.
- They also claim flaws in the notary's actions. According to them, the notary knew before the visit that the deceased was bedridden and very ill, but refrained from inviting a doctor to confirm that she was mentally fit for the team. They further argued that the notary public does not indicate that on the day of the visit the testator was in real danger of death or that she felt herself facing death, nor does she indicate whether he wrote down the words of the deceased on the day of the visit and who gave him the names of the beneficiaries according to the will. In addition, there is an unexplained gap of two and a half months between the words of the mitzva orally and the date of depositing the memoir.
- They further claim that during her lifetime, the deceased granted her rights in part as a gift to her daughters and 1/4 to her two granddaughters (the applicants) and even signed an irrevocable power of attorney.
III. The deceased's competence to discern the nature of a will
- On June 6, 2019, I appointed the expert, Dr. Rasem Kanaana, as a adolescent psychiatrist, for the purpose of examining the objections' arguments regarding the deceased's incapacity to discern the nature of the will at the time of her oral remarks and to diagnose her mental state (hereinafter: "the expert").
- The expert submitted his opinion on June 19, 2021, at the end of which he states that the deceased knew how to discern the nature of a will when she said the following:
"After receiving an anamnesis, reviewing the medical documentation detailed above, with an emphasis on medical documents relevant to the subject of the opinion, and further to the aforementioned discussion, I am of the opinion with a high probability that at the time of the drafting of the will on June 6, 2019, the deceased was cognitively and mentally competent to understand the nature of the will and to draw it up with judgment, consideration and preserved cognitive functioning and in a manner that enables the ability to discern the nature of the will."
- The expert prepared his opinion on the basis of medical documents and after conducting an anamnesis, i.e., he heard the arguments of the applicant, the objectors and P. regarding the deceased's medical condition before he proceeded to recite the testator's words (see the expert's statement submitted on August 12, 2024).
- The expert relied in his opinion on the following medical documents from which facts arise that negate the objections' claims regarding the deceased's incompetence, and the main point of them are:
The emergency room report shows that at the time of the deceased's admission to the emergency room at Nazareth Hospital on June 6, 2019 at 20:01, "no content was raised that reflected impairment of the state of consciousness or cognitive impairment" (p. 6 of the opinion).