The Petition (H)On 19 May 2005, the Attorney General (AG) informed the Supreme Court of Israel of the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor’s (MITL) decision to cancel its previous instruction to close the unemployment office in the Arab village of Kufr Kana, in the north of Israel. The AG’s decision follows the filing of a petition by Adalah and Sawt el-Amel (the Laborer’s Voice), which demanded that the Supreme Court prevent the MITL from closing the unemployment office. The Court accepted the MITL’s decision on 25 May 2005. As a result of the MITL’s decision, the unemployment office there can now continue to provide its services to approximately 71,000 Palestinian citizens of Israel in the area, including over 4,000 job seekers.
Adalah Attorney Gadeer Nicola submitted the petition to the Supreme Court on 8 September 2004, in the name of Adalah and Sawt el-Amel, and on behalf of eight unemployed individuals from Kufr Kana and neighboring villages served by the Kufr Kana unemployment office. The petition was submitted after the MITL decided to shut down the office and redirect its users to the unemployment office in Nazareth. The Court issued an injunction immediately after the filing of the petition, preventing the MITL from closing the unemployment office pending a final decision on the case.
As the petitioners argued, all of the nine towns served by Kufr Kana’s unemployment office are recognized by the National Employment Service as centers of high unemployment, as the unemployment rates in them exceed 10% of the total labor force; the rate of unemployment in the nine towns in fact ranges from 15% to 30%.
As part of its reform plan in 2004, the MITL decided to close ten unemployment offices throughout the country, both in Arab and Jewish towns, and to transfer the affected job seekers to neighboring offices. Significantly, the MITL did not decide to close unemployment offices in Jewish towns with high rates of unemployment, which serve a smaller number of people than the office in Kufr Kana. Therefore, Adalah argued that the decision to close the office discriminated against job seekers on the basis of their national belonging and breached their basic right to equality, as well as their constitutional right to dignity and their right to social security.
It is important to note that the unemployment office in Nazareth, which serves the 100,000 residents of Nazareth and three surrounding Arab villages, is already over-crowded and under-staffed, and that these towns head the Labor Office's list of centers of high unemployment. As stated in the petition, if the MITL had closed the Kufr Kana employment office, the number of job seekers to be served by the Nazareth office would have risen dramatically to over 10,000 people, severely compromising the standard of service provided.
H.C. 8249/04, Ziad Matar et. al. vs. Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor
For more information, see Adalah’s News Update, Following Adalah and Laborer's Voice Petition: Supreme Court Issues Injunction Preventing Ministry of Labor from Closing Kufr Kana Unemployment Office, 8 September 2004