Betzedek has submitted a High Court appeal against the
Interior Minister's new regulation that includes Child
Allowances as income in determining eligibility for discounts
on local taxes.
The new regulation is aimed at large families and bnei
Torah, whose income tends to be low, and seeks to
diminish the level of their discounts.
Betzedek is an American-Israeli organization for the
advancement of human rights and social justice. Founded by
Agudas Yisroel of America and its executive vice president,
Rabbi Shmuel Bloom, the organization addresses legal and
social issues affecting the chareidi public.
The petition, filed by the organization's director Attorney
Mordechai Green against the Interior Minister and the Center
for Local Government, demands the new section in the State's
economic arrangements regulations for 5764-2003 be taken off
the books. Green is also asking for an interim order to keep
the regulation from taking effect until a final decision is
reached regarding the petition or that hearings be scheduled
as soon as possible due to the harsh blow presently being
carried out as a result of the regulation.
According to the petition the regulation is directly
responsible for substantially harming the citizen's right to
minimal human subsistence and many people's ability to live
their lives according to their basic needs.
Green adds that the regulation's illegality stems both from
its essential nature and from deep-rooted defects that came
about during the process of formulating the regulation. He
claims that by bringing many families to the point of dire
poverty it violates the Fundamental Law for Human Dignity and
Liberty. Furthermore, Green maintains the Interior Minister
overstepped his authority by regulating discount levels on
local taxes (arnona) since this authority is only
vested in him on condition no damage is done to fundamental
rights and laws.
The petition goes on to claim that the concept of welfare
includes not just support in the form of payments and grants,
but also extends to refraining from diminishing poor people's
funds, property and purchases. Yet this regulation represents
a major change in terms of the State's obligation to ensure
minimal human subsistence for people in a state of financial
crisis and the character of the State of Israel as a Jewish,
democratic welfare state.
The petition also states, "Local taxes are paid on the use of
property for residential purposes. Beyond any doubt, although
man is compared to `a tree in the field,' he is not required
to live in parks and forests. In addition to bread to eat and
clothes to wear he needs a roof over his head in order to
live according to basic human standards."
With over 100 paragraphs covering 30 pages the petition
presented the court with "a harsh picture of compromising the
right to minimal existence for the weaker segments of the
population, many of which are teetering on the brink, along
with harm to the State of Israel's fundamental existence as a
Jewish, democratic welfare state. The regulation harms the
right to equality and contains extreme distortions. During
the process of drawing up the regulation many defects came
about and the Interior Minister even acted without explicit
legal sanction."
