Jerusalem District Court judge rules in Hiddush's favor
Hiddush in pursuit of legal justice
Hiddush just scored a victory in the Jerusalem District Court in a freedom-of-information case, involving a huge amount of governmental grant monies, exceeding one hundred million NIS, provided to mostly Orthodox religious outreach organizations by multiple governmental agencies
02/10/2017 22:45
Tags: Hiddush in pursuit of legal justice
As we all know, the wheels of justice turn slowly, but they do turn, and we want to share with you a great sense of accomplishment.
While this ordeal is far from over, Hiddush just scored a victory in the Jerusalem District Court when the judge ruled in our favor yesterday in a freedom-of-information case, which we reported on in February. This case involved a huge amount of governmental grant monies, exceeding one hundred million NIS, which were provided to mostly Orthodox religious outreach organizations by multiple governmental agencies.
Through freedom of information motions, and after repeated delays, we received information from the Ministry of Justice regarding occurrences of double- triple- and quadruple- dipping of (mostly) religious organizations into various Ministries' and government authorities' grants budgets, which is illegal. As you can see from the visual below, the 40 page document that was sent to us was greatly censored, as if this was a high security secret. This further increased our conviction that the authorities have much to hide, and Hiddush appealed their absurd partial disclosure, which rendered their response nearly useless. This appeal to the administrative court was on the grounds of improper invocation of exemptions under the Freedom of Information Law.
First and foremost among the governmental agencies was the Ministry of Agriculture, headed by the Zionist ultra-Orthodox political leader Uri Ariel, in breach of explicit instructions from the Attorney General, forbidding multiple parallel governmental grants to individual recipients. As we reported, the politicians involved were not only attempting to circumvent the Attorney General's instructions, but also attempted to hide the damning report and analysis the AG's staff had issued. They refused to release this report to us, and rejected our freedom-of-information motion regarding it.
The court has now fully rejected the excuses and legally acrobatics attempted by the state representatives, trying to justify their refusal, and it has ordered them to release the report to us in within 30 days and awarded Hiddush 15,000 NIS in costs.
The court has now fully rejected the excuses and legally acrobatics attempted by the state representatives, trying to justify their refusal, and it has ordered them to release the report to us in within 30 days and awarded Hiddush 15,000 NIS in costs. It remains to be seen now whether the state will appeal the judge's ruling, and assuming we receive the hitherto undisclosed report, we will study it and
consider further legal action for the actual breach of rules regarding governmental allocations. Stay tuned.
In another case, Hiddush was approached a small party supply store in Tel Aviv, which, along with its long inventory, sells sweets. The sweets are all kosher under the Chief Rabbinate's supervision, and they are all sold in their original sealed packaging. On their website, they listed these, as denoted by the Chief Rabbinate, as "Kosher Pareve."
They were fined 2,000 NIS by the Rabbinate for not having the store under the Rabbinate's supervision, while advertising items as kosher. Clearly, an outrageous, illegal abuse of authority, and so we turned on behalf of the store to the Rabbinate, the Ministry of Religious Services, and the Attorney General, demanding that the fine be cancelled, an apology be issued to the owners, other fines be reviewed to identify similarly illegal ones, and clear and strict instructions be issued to prevent the recurrence of such breaches of authority. The Chief Rabbinate rescinded the fine in response to Hiddush’s legal action.
At the time, the Rabbinate disregarded our demand to revisit their record of fines for additional improper applications of their authority, even as they rescinded the individual fine. We have now been asked for help by an additional merchant in the same party supply industry who dared appeal a fine against him, and in response the Rabbinate not only rejected his appeal without any explanation, but they also levied an additional fine on him - this time for double the amount: a total of 6,000 NIS.
This week, we turned to the Rabbinate, to the Attorney General, and to the Ministry of Religious Services, asking that these absurd fines be rescinded. We also demanded that this time their record of fines be revisited and unauthorized bullying tactics be reprimanded and illegal fines be returned.
It was recently reported that the Chief Rabbinate is systematically expanding its yoke over Israeli merchants, whom they perceive to be infringing on their exclusive authority to certify food as kosher. Their crop yield from fines in 2016 was 2,424,000 NIS in fines for 1,346 violations fines levied for kashrut law infringements.