Supreme Court: Education Ministry Must Prepare Suitable Classrooms for Hearing Impaired Arab Children Within One Week

Yesterday, 24 August 2003, the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Education (MOE) to provide two appropriate classrooms for hearing impaired Arab children, citizens of Israel, within one week, before the beginning of the new school year. The children, who range in age from three to five years old and who live in the southern Triangle in Israel, did not attend their kindergarten classes for seven months in 2003, due to the unsafe, sub-standard facilities provided by the MOE.

The Supreme Court gave this instruction pursuant to a petition submitted by Adalah on behalf of eight of the children in May 2003. The petition, filed by Adalah Attorney Orna Kohn, demanded that the MOE provide suitable classroom facilities for the children. In December 2002, the MOE decided to move the children from proper classrooms to an unsafe, sub-standard space. The new space was small and dark, with broken windows and exposed electrical wiring, located in a hallway in the basement of an elementary school. Despite their parents' protests and the intervention of numerous organizations, including Shatil, the MOE refused to provide proper facilities, and even accused the children's parents' of neglect by keeping them out of school. By denying appropriate educational facilities to the children, Adalah argued that the MOE was violating their rights to education, dignity and equality, as well as the Special Education Law (1998) and international human rights treaties, to which Israel is a state party.

At a hearing in July 2003, the Supreme Court instructed the MOE to immediately locate suitable classrooms, and to inform the Court that it had done so within 15 days. If the MOE failed to comply, the Court stated that it would issue an injunction and an order nisi (order to show cause). Justice Dalia Dorner, one of the justices presiding on the panel, stated at the hearing that: "the location you (the MOE) have offered is unbefitting, your response is unacceptable, [it is] not a serious response to the petition of desperate parents of hearing impaired children, citizens of the State of Israel, who are in need of an appropriate educational framework."

After the July 2003 hearing, the MOE located two alternative classrooms. While the spaces were appropriate, both classrooms were in need of extensive renovation. In response to Adalah's concerns, the MOE stated that it was the local municipalities' responsibility to undertake the needed classroom preparations. Yesterday, the Court, in addition to ordering immediate compliance by the MOE and the local municipalities, also instructed the MOE to pay legal fees in the sum of NIS 10,000.

See also: Adalah News Update, "Adalah Petitions the Supreme Court Demanding the Return to Suitable Classroom Facilities for Eight Hearing Impaired Children in Tirah," 14 May 2003.