The law further discusses the "basic elements" of a will in witnesses, in section 25(b)(2) as follows:
"In the will of witnesses as stated in section 20 - the will is in writing and the testator brought it before two witnesses."
- According to the son, the will does not meet the requirements of section 20 since the witness to the will did not sign the will, neither at the time of making the will nor at a later date, and therefore the document was not formulated into a will at all. According to him, the girls' claim that it is not customary for women to sign documents in the Druze community should be rejected. In addition, the witness to the will accompanied the deceased to visit the Sheikh's home, and thus the Sheikh also understood this and saw her as a mere accompanier. There is also room to doubt whether the testimony to the will accompanied the deceased at all. According to him, the witness to the will itself testified that she did not overhear the conversation between the deceased and the sheikh, but even if she was present, she did not witness the conversation and did not take part in it. The fact that the deceased declared to me the witness of the will before making the will that she intended to replace her will, or the fact that she handed over the will to her after making it, does not make the witness a witness into a will that meets the requirements of the law. (paragraphs 48-63 of the son's summaries). A result of the son's arguments is that according to him, the court cannot make use of section 25(b)(2) and overcome the defect.
- The daughters refer to the testimony of the honorable sheikh as evidence of the presence of the witness, as well as the testimony of the witness to the will itself, and mention that it was the witness who kept the will until after the death of the deceased, when she gave the will to the daughters. According to the daughters, the witness's signature on the will is not part of the basic elements of the will of witnesses. The basic elements are, as stated, that the will be in writing and that it was brought before me by two witnesses (paragraphs 32-40 of the affidavit of the applicant No. 1; paragraphs 77-103 of the summaries of the understandings). According to the daughters, therefore, the basic elements of the will are fulfilled, and it must be fulfilled by virtue of section 25(b)(2) of the Law.
- The starting point for the legal outline in our case is that the witness's signature on the will is not a fundamental component of the will, and when the conditions for this are met, it can be executed. On the other hand, the "bringing" of the will before me by two witnesses is a fundamental component, in the absence of which we do not have before us a valid will. The Honorable Justice S. Shochat explained the matter as follows:
"The requirement that the testator 'bring' the will in front of two witnesses requires examination both with regard to the status and role of the witnesses, and with regard to the ceremonial content that must be cast into the box 'and brought,' since it is not in the physical sense of the word that the legislature directs. This examination is important because Amendment 11 teaches us that the signature of the testator and/or witnesses on the will is a 'dynamic component' and that the court can ignore them if it had no doubt, because the document that is supposed to be a will reflects 'the free and true will of the testator'. The requirement for the existence of two witnesses in a written will under section 20 of the Inheritance Law has always been, even before the aforementioned Amendment 11, a 'fundamental element in a will' of this type [...] The dispute in the case law, prior to the aforementioned Amendment 11, related to the question of the absence of the signatures of the witnesses, as opposed to the existence of the two witnesses, to the situation in which they witnessed the will but they or one of them forgot to sign it [...] Go out and learn that according to all opinions, a will in the presence of witnesses without witnesses is not a will and cannot be amended by virtue of section 25 of the Law, as it was drafted prior to the amendment. This rule did not change following Amendment 11. The aforementioned Amendment 11 resolves the dispute as to the necessity of the witnesses' signature on the will. The signature of the witnesses is no more than a fundamental element of a written will according to section 20. Amendment 11 does not change the rule according to which the presence of two witnesses in the will as witnesses constitutes a basic element without which there is none.