British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 240

CHAPTER VIII.

registered on production of probate or letters of administration. Provision exists for the appointment of guardians of persons under disability and for the sanction of the courts in dealing with the interests of such persons.

Matters of personal status in relation to property are complicated by the fact that there are eleven religious courts of different communities having jurisdiction.

42. The system of registration, as initiated by Judge Williamson, is defective owing to the absence of a cadastral survey, rigorously maintained to date, whereby the parcels of land affected are accurately defined on a plan on which it is related to all contiguous plots and to a national framework of triangulation. That it enjoys a large measure of public confidence is, however, shown by the increasingly large number of transactions recorded. The system may be described as a combination of a register of deeds and a register of transactions.

43. There is no guarantee of indefeasibility of title. Article 3 of the Ottoman Law of Disposition, in speaking of title deeds issued by the Land Registry says :-

"Formal title deeds are valid and executory. The civil and Moslem courts shall give judgment on these deeds and their registration without further proof. A formal title deed shall not be annulled except by judgment of a court based on lawful reason".

Registration made -in pursuance of land settlement can be voided only on the ground of fraud.

"The legal value of an entry in the land registers and of the corresponding certificate of registration has been examined in a number of cases before the Palestine courts which appears to justify the view that such entry gives more than a merely -prima facie title and is conclusive evidence of ownership in the absence of fraud" (Goadby and Doukhan: Land Law of Palestine, p. 308).

44. Evidence of confidence in the value of registration in the Land Registry is indicated by the increasingly large number of transactions a record of which, covering the period from the reopening of the registries on the 1st October, 1920, to the 31st December, 1945, is given in paragraph 50 below.

45. So far, reference has been made to the system of registration inherited from the Turks and to that initiated by Judge Williamson. There remains yet a third, which is intended to supersede these two.

Page 240