The state will no longer be able to grant a "scholarship for studies and encouraging the integration of kollel Abrahimi into employment" as budgetary support for Abrahimi, starting at the end of 2014. This was determined by an expanded panel of seven High Court justices, headed by Supreme Court President Asher Grunis.
According to a report on the 'Globes' website, the judges unanimously decided to accept the petition of the Student Association, the Hiddush Association, the Center for Jewish Pluralism and other bodies, which was submitted in January 2011, after the government decided on the new budget regulation, following a previous ruling given by the High Court of Justice in 2010 [the Yekutieli ruling], which abolished the budgetary preference given to kollel avrachi over university students. According to that ruling, the budgetary preference given to kollel avrachi constitutes a violation of the principle of equality vis-à-vis university students.
The new ruling is the 13th ruling by the Supreme Court to overturn a section of primary Knesset legislation. The amount that will now be written off from the students' accounts was 110 million shekels for 2011 and 109 million shekels for 2012. The number of students receiving budgetary support, as of July 2013, is 9,400.
Petitioners: Discrimination against other streams of Judaism
The petitioners, represented by attorneys Gilad Barnea and Orly Erez-Lachovsky, argued that the government's decision to grant "scholarships to encourage integration" to Abrechim perpetuates the unlawful discrimination that existed before the ruling was made.
The main ruling was written by Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, and was joined by Grunis, Miriam Naor, Edna Arbel, Salim Giubran, Esther Hayut, and Neil Hendel. The justices distinguished between the basic track of payment of the allowance, which they determined violates the value of equality, and the "perpetual track," which may be considered constitutional if it undergoes various adjustments, given the "importance and centrality of the value of Torah study." However, the core of the ruling deals with the principle of equality, and the question of whether the provision of scholarships violates this principle.
Rubinstein notes that one of the purposes of the "scholarship," which was decided upon in 2010, deals with "the social process of integrating the Haredi public into Israeli society, a process of which the issue of budgetary support for kollel robes is one aspect. This is a process that requires time, and it is not an act that can be done in a flash of a decision, with 'hocus pocus'; this process involves changes in patterns of thinking and habits of action, which unfortunately have been practiced for many, many years.".
However, he notes that in New York, USA, there are "hundreds of thousands of Haredim, the vast majority of whom work for a living, and in any case a higher percentage than in Israel.".
Judge Rubinstein also addresses the issue of employment: "If the government's stated purpose, to pay the benefit in order to enable the integration of the Haredim into the labor market, is a "lip service, 'as if' a purpose," then "there should be no attempt to circumvent the ruling in the Yekutieli case." The judges also rejected the government's claim that, in parallel with the new scholarship, the budget of the Student Aid Fund was greatly increased and almost doubled. "The increase in aid for students is intended to reduce the inequality between them and the Havrehim," states Rubinstein, "and not to compare them in an absolute way.".
""That the few will not become the many""
As for the track for the permanent students, the judges decided to allow the transfer of 20 million shekels, according to the government's decision, to this group of students. However, Rubinstein noted that "it must be ensured, of course, within the limits of reasonableness and proportionality, that the title and name of the arrangement be consistent with the scope of those who are confined under it, that is, that the limited does not become infinitely large, that the few do not become the many, and that the bowl is not turned upside down and that the limits of reasonableness are not breached.".
As is customary in High Court rulings requiring the government to prepare in areas that are at the heart of public discourse, the implementation of the ruling was postponed until January 2015. The budget section included in the 2014 Budget Law is therefore not repealed, but the government is prohibited from re-enacting it in its current form, within the framework of the 2015 Budget Law. Judge Hayut noted that "even if the income guarantee allowances, specifically intended for the group of apprentices, were conditional on vocational training of some extent or another, this would not, in my view, be sufficient to permit their granting in a blanket manner while violating the right to equality. Managing the state budget through such "unique" transfers is unconstitutional, and can only be permitted in cases where such a serious violation of the right to equality serves a proper purpose and does not exceed what is required.".
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