The Interior Ministry’s policy in extending permits to stay in Israel in the framework of requests for family unificationThe policy of the Interior Ministry on requests for family unification of permanent residents in Israel and their spouses from the Occupied Territories that were submitted before the government’s decision of May 2002, which prohibits new requests of this kind, is based on the procedure referred to as the “graduated arrangement.” This procedure lasts 5 ¼ years, at the end of which the spouse from the Occupied Territories is given the status of permanent resident. The procedure begins on the day that the request for family unification is approved, a process that takes an average of four to five years, after the family has proven that the center of its life is in Israel and that they are not involved in criminal or security activity.
Throughout the period of the graduated arrangement, the spouse from the Occupied Territories is required to obtain permits – first, a permit to enter Israel, which is issued by the Civil Administration, and later, a temporary-resident visa. The permits are given for a one-year period, and can be extended by the Population Administration’s office.
According to Interior Ministry procedures, extension of the permits were to be handled within three months (originally, the period was two months) from the day the request was submitted, provided that the applicant complied with the conditions set by the Ministry. These conditions, which had to be met each time an extension was requested, included proof that the marriage was genuine, that the center of the family’s life was in Israel, and that there were no criminal or security problems warranting refusal. The objective was to create continuity of lawful stay in Israel for the foreign spouses.
Failure of the Interior Ministry to comply with the rules that it set; filing of the petition by HaMoked The Population Administration’s office in East Jerusalem does not comply with the said rules set by the Interior Ministry, and, until recently, took a year and even more, on average, to reach a decision on the requests for extensions. As a result, the spouses of permanent residents, most of whom had already waited from four to five years to receive initial approval of their request for family unification, find themselves in a situation whereby, until the Interior Ministry reaches a decision on their request, they are denied a lawful status in Israel, are unable to move about freely, are subject to delays, arrest, and deportation, and are denied their fundamental rights to family life and to human dignity.
In light of the arbitrary handling of the requests by the Population Administration, HaMoked filed, on 4 April 2004, a petition before the Jerusalem District Court for Administrative Matters (
AP 612/04, Dahud et al. v. Minister of Interior et al.). The petition was made on behalf of the wife of a permanent resident of Israel who has lived with her husband in Jerusalem since they were married in 1996. The couple has three children, who are permanent residents of Israel. When they married, the couple submitted a request for family unification, which was approved five years later. They then took part in the graduated arrangement. The wife was given a permit to stay in Israel. In August 2002, the couple submitted a request to extend the permit for a year, but in the
one year and eight months that have passed since then, the Interior Ministry has not reached a decision on the request. It was not until after the petition was filed (about one month afterwards) that the Interior Ministry approved extension of the petitioner’s permit to stay in Israel. According to the Ministry, the approval was “unrelated to the filing of the petition.”
HaMoked was not satisfied with the granting of approval, and insisted that the Interior Ministry’s procedure be amended to ensure that spouses whose request for family unification has been approved would be able to stay lawfully in Israel without interruption.
After a period of negotiating the demand of HaMoked, the Interior Ministry recently declared, during the hearing of the petition before the District Court, that the procedures would be changed. From now on, in the case of persons whose request for family unification has been approved and they have entered the graduated arrangement and now seek renewal of their visa or a change in the kind of visa, they will be summoned to the Population Ministry’s office as soon as possible, and no longer than three months from the day the request is submitted. If, when the applicant appears at the office, it is not possible to extend immediately the visa for the entire period called for in the graduated arrangement, the visa will be extended for six months, provided there is no security reason to warrant denying the extension, and decision on the request will be made within this six-month period.
In addition, the Interior Ministry announced to the District Court that it would distribute the new procedure at offices of the Population Administration by the end of October 2004, and would announce the way to request an appointment to submit requests for extension. In light of the Ministry’s declaration, the petition was dismissed.
To download
the petition of HaMoked to the Jerusalem Court for Administrative Affairs – AP 612/04, Dahud et al. v. Minister of Interior et al.Court’s judgment of 5 September 2004
