Betzedek, the American-Israeli center for the promotion of
justice in Israel funded by Agudas Yisroel of America, filed
High Court appeals against the Justice Ministry's Non-
Government Organizations Registrar, the Finance Ministry's
Accountant General, the Welfare Ministry's accountant and the
Justice Ministry's head of support funding in the matter of
funding withheld from NGOs that have a valid Temporary Proper
Management Certificate.
The organization's director, Attorney Rabbi Mordechai Green,
is trying to appeal to the High Court to rule against Proper
Management Certificates that are issued by the Interior
Ministry as valid for only part of the fiscal year in the
case of NGOs where no problems have been discovered.
In the case against the Accountant General at the Finance
Ministry, the Court is being asked to order the transfer of
overdue support or budget payments for NGOs that have a
Temporary Proper Management Certificate.
In the appeal against the Welfare Ministry accountant,
Betzedek is asking the High Court to order support or budget
funding to be transferred to every NGO that received a
Temporary Proper Management Certificate from the
Registrar.
In the appeal against the head of support funding at the
Justice Ministry, the High Court is being asked to cancel
instructions not to transfer support or budget payments to
every NGO that possesses a temporary certificate.
In addition, the High Court is being asked to issue an
interim order instructing the Accountant General and the
Welfare Ministry's accountant not to delay the transfer of
the support payments to these NGOs until a final decision has
been reached.
In his High Court appeal, Rabbi Green explains that the
government ministries generally set criteria for the support
of public institutions or NGOs. In order to actually receive
the money they are entitled to, institutions must follow a
procedure in accordance with the guidelines set and published
by the Finance Minister. For instance -- and in particular --
every institution must produce a Proper Management
Certificate valid for that year issued by the NGO Registrar,
who conducts routine inspections of all of the nonprofit
institutions.
Once every few years each NGO undergoes an in-depth audit
that lasts for several months. In some cases the review has
lasted for as long as a year. An NGO under such an in-depth
review does not receive the standard annual Proper Management
Certificate, but rather a temporary certificate subject to
periodic renewal. This type of certificate is also given to
NGOs that failed to produce all of the documents required by
the Registrar, even if the documents in question are
inconsequential.
Green says that until recently, in practice the Accountant
General and the accountants of the various ministries
routinely related to the temporary certificate as if they
were the regular yearlong certificates, but now the head of
support funding at the Justice Ministry and the accountants
of different ministries, particularly the Ministry of
Welfare, announced that they would no longer transfer funds
to NGOs unless they have a regular certificate. This is not
just since the organizations are merely undergoing a periodic
review and are not suspected of anything.
The directive was given orally but as a result, a large
number of NGOs that were supposed to receive funding for
regular activity and retroactive funding from the previous
fiscal year have not received any payments, causing them
irreversible damage.
Green says when the NGO Registrar became aware that the
temporary certificates he was issuing cause major,
unjustified harm to the organizations he should have
discontinued their use. Likewise the Accountant General and
the other ministry accountants are not allowed to obey a
totally illegal directive that unfairly harms innocent
organizations.
Regarding the head of support funding at the Justice
Ministry, Green says "As an administrative authority it is
also subject to the rules of proper administration and the
law, it must gather relevant data and apply judgment, and
only afterwards take action. It is not acceptable and it
contradicts all measures of decency and rules of proper
administration, for an administrative authority to issue such
a damaging directive and only afterwards to hold discussions
on the matter, if at all. A directive that was issued and
conceived improperly or caused trouble recklessly should be
cancelled."
According to the appeal, the directive regarding the Proper
Management Certificate itself was first announced four years
ago, but nowhere does the law make a provision for the NGO
Registrar to carry out reviews and to grant or deny such a
certificate. Furthermore, in the government's decision on
this issue and also in a booklet called "Nihul Takin Shel
Amutah" ("Proper NGO Management") there is no mention of
a temporary certificate. Moreover, just a year ago the
Accountant General even issued instructions to ministry
accountants to consider a temporary certificate the same as a
regular certificate.
Over one thousand NGOs received temporary certificates over
the past year, notes Green. When NGOs were notified that
their funding was being withheld because they lacked a
regular certificate they asked to see a written statement of
this policy. In response they were told the directive had
been transmitted orally and therefore the public announcement
had also been transmitted orally.
As a result government funding committees are not even
considering the requests of hundreds of NGOs, nor are these
NGOs receiving payments approved by the funding committees
and which they are legally entitled to receive. Furthermore
the accountants have even stopped the transfer of funding
withheld from the previous budget year when they had proper
certificates.
According to Betzedek the resulting inability of many NGOs to
pay their workers constitutes "a mortal, irreparable blow to
many hundreds of NGOs, their members, their administrations,
and most of all thousands of workers and suppliers." Hundreds
of NGOs that possess a regular certificate for 2003 and
submitted all of the necessary paperwork received only
temporary certificates after they were chosen at random for
in-depth reviews, which could take months to be completed.
Green also says the instructions sent by the head of the
Justice Ministry's funding department via telephone are
illegal, irregular and unreasonable in the extreme, and not
in keeping with proper governance and impair the
constitutional right to equality. They also contradict the
Accountant General's directive to consider temporary
certificates the same as regular ones. Green claims the
instructions to stop support funding are also illegal.
In the appeal Green also writes that an NGO should not be
denied a full-year certificate just because it lacks minor
document whose absence does not compromise the organization's
proper management, and certainly if the failure to produce
the document is beyond the NGO's control.
Also the Non-Government Organizations Registrar is not
empowered anywhere to issue a temporary certification and he
could just as easily issue a regular full-year certification
and later cancel it even in the middle of the year if the
findings of an audit justified this.
In light of all these points Green is asking the High Court
to issue an order nisi which would become an absolute order
following the counter-arguments, and an interim order
instructing the Accountant General and the Welfare Ministry
accountant to continue transferring the funds withheld
because of the directive issued by the Justice Ministry's
head of funding.
