High Court rejects petitions: The way is paved for the election of rabbis in Jerusalem

October 19, 2014   

High Court of Justice Justices Yoram Danziger, Uzi Fogelman and Uri Shoham rejected the three petitions against the new regulations for electing city rabbis and against the appointment of members of the Jerusalem Rabbinate's electoral body. The petitions were filed by United Torah Judaism and four private petitioners. Following the rejection of the petitions, the elections will be held on time, this coming Tuesday, at the Jerusalem Municipality building in Safra Square. The judges rejected both the claims against the actual enactment of the regulations, and the claims that concerned the way in which the Minister of Religious Services, Naftali Bennett, appointed his representatives to the electoral assembly. Justice Fogelman noted in the main opinion: "The essence of this amendment is the authority that the Minister assumed to appoint, with the consent of the head of the local authority and in accordance with the established criteria, a quarter of the members of the electoral assembly as a city rabbi based on criteria established in the regulations. We examined this decision in all its aspects: from the level of authority, to the level of procedure, and to the level of exercise of discretion. Our examination of the various stages revealed that there was no flaw in them that would justify the intervention of this court, taking into account the accepted grounds for criticism." The petition against the way in which the Minister of Religious Services exercised his authority to appoint representatives was also rejected. Judge Fogelman wrote: "The regulations require the Minister to appoint representatives to the Electoral Assembly while strictly observing the principle of appropriate representation. In order to exercise this authority, the Minister made use of the CBS report dealing with the religious-sectoral segmentation of Jerusalem residents and appointed his representatives accordingly. "Since I did not find that the use of this tool exceeded the bounds of reasonableness; and since no basis was laid for the minister's representatives to be brought for approval by the city council - a claim that was made only in general terms - I did not find substance in the petitioners' claims, and the petition should therefore be dismissed. The request for an interim order is automatically dismissed as well," the judge added. Unlike the petition of the members of the 'Sefardi Community Committee' who were ordered to pay expenses, in these petitions the petitioners were not ordered to pay expenses to the state. [Gallery]