Center for the Defence of the Individual - After HaMoked’s years' long battle with the Ministry of Interior: for the first time, a child born and raised in Jerusalem, whose grandmother is his legal guardian, was granted permanent Israeli status although his mother is alive
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
02.11.2015

After HaMoked’s years' long battle with the Ministry of Interior: for the first time, a child born and raised in Jerusalem, whose grandmother is his legal guardian, was granted permanent Israeli status although his mother is alive

For over three years HaMoked struggled with the Ministry of Interior for the registration in the Israeli population registry of a child from Jerusalem, born in 2002 to an Israeli resident mother. The child, abandoned by his parents as an infant, has been raised in Jerusalem by his grandmother who was appointed his legal guardian by the Sharia Court. However, the Ministry of Interior refused the application filed by HaMoked to register him as a permanent Israeli resident under Regulation 12 of the Entry into Israel Regulations – whereby a child born and living in Israel must be given the same status as his parent or guardian (provided the other, non-Israeli parent does not object). The Regulation’s objective, as ruled by the High Court of Justice (HCJ), is to prevent a disparity of status between the parent and child, in order to ensure cohesion of the family unit and for the child’s best interests – both established basic principles in Israeli law. The Ministry of Interior dismissed the Sharia Court’s grant of custody to the grandmother, and argued that as the child’s birth mother was alive and accessible, it was in the child’s best interest to be with her, his natural guardian, and not with his grandmother.

On March 30, 2014, the child was given temporary status in Israel for one year (visa type A/5) in accordance with the appellate committee’s decision, which relied on the Sharia Court’s decree that the grandmother was to be the child’s guardian. In its decision, the committee criticized the Ministry of Interior’s conduct in the case and ruled that the child first must be granted status for a year, during which time, an assessment report addressing the child’s best interests would be prepared by the Ministry of Welfare, based on which, the child’s future would be decided. The committee also determined that an affidavit should be obtained from the child’s mother, detailing her position on the matter. On May 4, 2015, the Ministry of Interior notified that the child’s temporary status would be extended by another six months, and requested that the assessment report be completed with focus on the child’s good vis-à-vis his “center of life”.

Thereupon, the social services’ assessment report on the child and his family was sent to the Ministry of Interior. The report clearly established that the child suffered from “severe trauma following his abandonment by his parents, and regards his grandmother as the stable and primary focus point in all areas of his life”; and also that it was in the minor’s best interests to remain with his grandmother and receive legal status in Israel. Despite that, the Ministry of Interior left the child’s case pending, and all the while, for months on end, HaMoked kept writing to the ministry to grant the minor permanent Israeli status.

Many months later, on November 1, 2015, the child finally received permanent status.