Israeli Government Announces it has Ceased using Decision Classifying Towns as "National Priority Areas" cancelled by Supreme Court in 2006

On 2 February 2011, the Supreme Court of Israel dismissed a petition submitted by Adalah on 20 June 2010 that sought to prevent the Israeli government from continuing to use a prior governmental decision – decision #2288 from 2002 – that divides the country into “National Priority Areas” (NPAs) in the field of education. This decision was ruled invalid by the Supreme Court in 2006 since it excluded Arab towns from being classified as National Priority towns. The petition challenged the legality of an article that was passed in the recent Economic Arrangements Law of July 2009, which extended the validity of all governmental decisions taken prior to the law for two and a half years, to January 2012. The petitioners argued that this article extended the validity of governmental decision #2288 until January 2012, in contradiction to the Supreme Court's ruling from 2006. The Supreme Court decided to dismiss Adalah's petition only after the Attorney General announced that government decision #2288 was not included in the aforementioned article, and thus that its validity had not been extended.

Background: In its 2006 ruling, which was delivered by an expanded panel of seven justices, the Supreme Court decided that the governmental decision classifying NPAs discriminated against Arab towns and villages, because of the 533 towns and villages originally designated as NPA (A) areas, there were only four small Arab villages. In accordance with this decision, NPAs “A” received large-scale benefits, incentives and grants, while NPAs “B” received similar benefits on a lesser scale. These incentives included tuition assistance, subsidies for travel expenses for teacher training, rent subsidies for teachers, payment of the employer's share in a teacher's fund for advanced training (Keren Hishtalmut), travel expenses, exemption from tuition fees for kindergarten, subsidies for matriculation examination fees, payment of higher sums for “balancing grants” to municipalities, additional classroom hours, funding for installing computers in schools, and preference in scholarships for students in higher education.

The Court gave the state one year to implement its ruling. After a year, however, the state requested an extension of this period. In response, Adalah filed a motion to the court demanding that the state's failure to implement the ruling should be considered as a contempt of court. The court eventually decided to extend the implementation period until 1 September 2009, while at the same time emphasizing the seriousness of the non-implementation of its ruling.

The petition was filed by Adalah Attorneys Hassan Jabareen and Sawsan Zaher on behalf of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel and the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Education in Israel, as well as in Adalah's own name.

Case Citation: HCJ 4788/10, The High Follow-Up Committee, et al. v. The Government of Israel

Adalah's position paper on National Priority Areas (English)