Center for the Defence of the Individual - HaMoked to the Appeals Tribunal: the Ministry of Interior’s renewed decision to revoke the status in Israel of a woman who has been living in the country for decades was utterly baseless and in contempt of the Tribunal’s earlier judgment
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29.09.2019

HaMoked to the Appeals Tribunal: the Ministry of Interior’s renewed decision to revoke the status in Israel of a woman who has been living in the country for decades was utterly baseless and in contempt of the Tribunal’s earlier judgment

On January 25, 2017, the Minister of Interior announced he had revoked the status of 11 family members of the man who perpetrated the attack against Israelis in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Armon HaNatziv on January 8, 2017. One of those stripped of status was the assailant’s mother.

The woman, in her 60s, has been living in Jerusalem for over 30 years. Immediately after the attack perpetrated by her son, the Ministry of Interior revoked her permanent status on the grounds that she was in a bigamous marriage. In the judgement issued in March 2018, the Appeals Tribunal ruled the Ministry of Interior must reconsider its decision in the woman’s case, transfer to HaMoked – which represents her – the documents on which its decision was based and make a decision within 75 days. On September 10, 2019, and only after HaMoked appealed against the Ministry’s failure to issue a decision, the Ministry of Interior decided yet again to revoke the woman’s status.

HaMoked appealed once more to the Appeals Tribunal on September 26, 2019, seeking the cancellation of the wrongful decision. In the appeal, HaMoked reasserted that the Ministry of Interior’s claim that the woman had obtained her permanent status based on false information supplied by her and her spouse was without foundation. HaMoked stressed that the Ministry of Interior’s real motive in this case, as in the others, was vengeful collective punishment against an innocent person. Clear indications of this include the fact that the Minister of Interior declared his intention to revoke her status on the day following the attack perpetrated by her son – and over 30 years after the woman had received her permanent status – and the Minister’s repeated statements to the media on the issue, in which he expressly stated he was seeking to “achieve deterrence”. These facts prove that the Minister had abused his authority for the extraneous purpose of deterrence and revenge. Moreover, argued HaMoked, the revocation proceedings in both rounds were conducted for appearance’s sake only, and their result was predetermined. All this leads to the inevitable conclusion that “the new decision, as the previous one, has no real merit, cannot be left standing, and must be revoked”.