The Supreme Court of Israel Rules in a Precedent-Setting Judgment: The State is not Allowed to Discriminate against the Arab Community in Allocating the Religious Ministry’s Budget for Cemeteries
Justice Zamir: “The Ministry of Religious Affairs should act on an equal basis when it allocates money from its budget to satisfy the religious needs of various religious communities.”
Today, the Supreme Court of Israel delivered its decision on a petition submitted by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, regarding discrimination by the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) in budget allocations for cemeteries against the Palestinian Arab religious communities. The Court ruled that the MORA should allocate the money designated for cemeteries on an equal basis.
The petition, submitted in February 1999 by Advocate Hassan Jabareen from Adalah, challenged two provisions of the 1999 Budget Law for the MORA. These two provisions designated 16,860,000 NIS (approximately US $4,415,000) for Jewish cemeteries only. The petition relied, inter alia, on the Supreme Court’s judgment of December 1998 in H.C. 240/98, Adalah, et. al., v. The Minister of Religious Affairs, et. al. In that case, the Court rejected Adalah’s challenge to four provisions of the Knesset Budget Law (1998), which allotted only 1.86% of the total budget of the Religious Ministry to Palestinian Arab Muslim, Christian, and Druze religious communities. Despite the State Comptroller’s Report (1996) and the Attorney General’s (Michael Ben-Yair) opinion (1995), which found that the disproportionate total budget allocation of the Religious Ministry discriminates against Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, the Court ruled that the remedy requested in the petition was too general.
In the current petition, Adalah requested that the Court order the MORA to set criteria that will ensure equality in allocating the money designated for cemeteries. Adalah argued: “The principle of equality is a constitutional principle, especially when the violation is based on national belonging. Giving preferences to one religious group over the others, where the difference between them is not relevant for the allocation being given, is discriminatory, and thus should be declared void.” In addition, Adalah stressed that: “The petition addresses a right that is not a special right belonging to one group and not to another. All are mortal - Jews like Arabs. All are buried. And all have an interest in returning to clean soil when they die.”
Justice Zamir delivered the judgment of the Court, which was joined by Chief Justice Barak and Justice Benish. The Court rejected the State’s claim that there is no discrimination, adding that: “We did not hear any reason from the MORA to justify why it set these two sections of the budget in a manner that prima facie violates equality.” The Court ruled that: “The resources of the State, whether land or money, or other resources as well, belong to all citizens and all citizens are entitled to enjoy [them] according to the principle of equality, without discrimination based on religion, race, sex or any other prohibited consideration.” The Court also ruled that: “We learn from the petition about immense neglect of Arab cemeteries … and it does not dignify the living or the dead.”
The Court ordered the Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA): “To allocate the money designated for cemeteries for 2000 among the different religious communities equally.” The Court emphasized that: “The MORA, which did not apply the duty of allocating budgets equally to cemeteries in 1999, could and should prepare itself for fulfilling this duty in 2000 and in the coming years.”
Further, the Court ordered the MORA to pay legal expenses to Adalah in the amount of 20,000 NIS (approximately US $5,000).
