On February 28, 2013,
HaMoked petitioned the Jerusalem Court for Administrative Affairs to instruct the Ministry of Interior to approve a family unification application filed by an East Jerusalem resident for her spouse, a resident of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). HaMoked questioned the ministry's grounds for denying the application whereby the OPT spouse's employment at the Palestinian Authority (PA) created a "conflict of interests". HaMoked stressed that in ministry's infringement of the basic right to family life of the couple and their children based on an obscure clash of interests was disproportioned.
In its
judgment, issued September 18, 2014, the court revoked the interior ministry's refusal decision and instructed the ministry to arrive at a new decision within 60 days. The court accepted HaMoked's claims and ruled that in its new decision, the ministry must assign greater weight to a string of considerations. The court stressed, inter alia, that although the ministry's decision relied on Sect. 3d of the
Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (on refusal of applications for individuals who pose a security threat to Israel), the ministry had not obtained security information indicating that accepting the application might jeopardize state security. Further, that given the indefinite nature of the alleged "conflict of interests", the infringement of the right to family life was indeed excessive. The court instructed the ministry to assign greater weight to the fact that the applicants had not sought residency status for the husband, but only a military-issued temporary permit of stay in Israel – the most a spouse undergoing family unification may receive under said Law. The court ruled that greater weight must also be assigned to the fact that the husband's position in the PA was civilian-academic.
Four months later, as the Ministry of Interior had failed to meet the court's schedule,
HaMoked filed a contempt of court motion, asking the court to hold the ministry in contempt of the court's ruling, impose on it trial costs, and instruct the ministry to promptly issue a new decision.
On February 9, 2015, the Ministry of Interior notified the court that upon reconsideration, it had again
decided to refuse the family unification application, again due to the "intrinsic conflict of interests" which it claimed superseded the right to family life. The ministry clung to its position that once the decision to refuse the application had been made, it made no difference if the application was for residency status or stay permit, as, in any event, the man clearly intended to live on in Israel even if pursuant to repeated stay permit renewal s. As a new decision had now been given, the state asked the court to dismiss the contempt of court motion.
In its response of February 11, 2015, HaMoked clarified its position as to the interior ministry's contempt of court judgment. HaMoked noted that even though the ministry did in fact address in its new decision all of the aspects dictated by the court, it seemed that in doing so, it had not assigned to them greater weight than in its first decision, as the court had instructed. HaMoked also noted that in several instances the ministry had expressly rejected the court's pronouncements in the judgment and presented a conflicting legal interpretation. If, as its decision suggested, the ministry opposed the court's stance, it should have appealed the judgment to the Supreme Court, rather than phrase its new decision in a cautious and evasive manner that appeared to abide by the court decision while opposing it in fact.
