The Petition (Hebrew)
On 25 January 2007, Adalah submitted a petition to the Supreme Court of Israel demanding the cancellation of the extension of the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order) – 2003 for a period of three months ending on 15 April 2007. The law denies Palestinian citizens of Israel the right to acquire any status in Israel for their Palestinian spouses from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs) solely on the basis of their national belonging. The petition was filed by Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher on behalf of two families harmed by the law: the Tabeli family from the town of Shafa’amr and the Sbihat family from the village of Salem, and in Adalah’s own name. The named respondents are the Interior Minister and the Attorney General.
Adalah argued that the extension of the law for three additional months contradicts the decision of the majority of justices of the Supreme Court in H.C. 7052/03, Adalah, et al., v. Minister of Interior, et al. delivered on 14 May 2006. Although the Supreme Court dismissed the petition, a majority of the justices decided that the National and Entry into Israel Law in its current form violates the constitutional right to family life and discriminates against Arab citizens of Israel by preventing them from living together in Israel with their family members from the OPTs. Therefore, the Court ruled that the law disproportionately violates the principle of equality. In addition, a majority of justices recommended in the decision that the state amend the law, so as to make it rely essentially on individual checks in order to evaluate the security risks posed by persons seeking to enter Israel for family unification purposes. Therefore, Adalah argued in the petition that the extension of the law’s validity constitutes a clear infringement of the Court’s decision, and a grave breach of the principles of the rule of law and the separation of powers.
Adalah further argued that this is not the first occasion on which the law has been extended: this represents the fifth extension since the issuance of a governmental decision in May 2002, the basic elements of which were enacted into law by the Knesset in July 2003. These repeated extensions render the so-called temporary law as a permanent law, despite the fact that it contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision issued seven months ago. Attorney Zaher contended in the petition that, “Five whole years of violating the constitutional rights to family life and equality, resulting in discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, have passed. And all of this contradicts the decision of a majority of Supreme Court justices.”
Adalah demanded that the Court issue an injunction obliging the Interior Minister to refrain from applying the directives of the law in the cases of the Tabeli and Sbihat families, pending a final decision on the petition, because the extension of the law causes great and irreversible damage to them and violates their constitutional right to family life.
H.C. 830/07, Tabeli et al. v. The Minister of the Interior, et al.