High Court: The state will explain why the conscription law will not be repealed • Litzman: We have no expectations

June 15, 2014   

Will the Conscription Law be repealed? The Equal Burden and Conscription Law are once again coming to the High Court of Justice, following petitions from organizations claiming that the law violates equality and discriminates between blood and blood.

On Friday, the High Court ordered the state to respond to the petitions, by September, and explain why the law should not be repealed. The three petitions will be heard before a panel of nine judges.

The Movement for Quality Government and the Forum for Equal Burden, which submitted the petitions, claim: The new conscription law is unconstitutional, its purpose is inappropriate, and it disproportionately violates the right to equality.

The new law, enacted last March, states that until July 2017, there will be no mandatory conscription for yeshiva students, but rather there will be conscription targets that will gradually increase.

Yeshiva students who were between the ages of 18 and 22 at the time the law was enacted could continue to postpone their service until age 24 - at which point they would receive an exemption. Young men aged 22 and over would receive an immediate exemption.

Young men under the age of 18 will be subject to military service, and they can defer their service. In addition, the Minister of Defense will be able to exempt 1,800 Haredi yeshivot students and 300 students from higher Zionist yeshivots from military service each year. However, members of Hesder yeshivots will serve only 17 months.

As mentioned, the High Court accepted the petitions, and ruled that the state must respond to the claims.

MK Yaakov Litzman responded to the High Court's ruling by saying that we have no expectation of recognition or understanding from the High Court, which, as is well known, was the one that decided to repeal the Torah and Art arrangement that had existed for many years. "The new law is bad by any standard and establishes criminal sanctions against Torah students in Israel, and here are the petitioners, who are insatiable, trying to continue their attempts to harm the status of Torah students, while the High Court shows understanding towards them and was quick to demand the state's reasons for why the law will not indeed be repealed, as they requested.".

""Therefore," Litzman explained, "we must understand that the High Court will not be able to accept any recognition or rejection of the new law, which includes a severe ruling and real harm to Torah scholars. The Haredi delegation will fight in every way against the said law and will work to ensure that the status of yeshiva students does not change, God forbid.".