Center for the Defence of the Individual - Despite the insufficient administrative evidence presented by the state: the HCJ rejected HaMoked’s request to hold a further hearing in the petition against the punitive demolition of a home in Jabal al-Mukabber
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
30.12.2015

Despite the insufficient administrative evidence presented by the state: the HCJ rejected HaMoked’s request to hold a further hearing in the petition against the punitive demolition of a home in Jabal al-Mukabber

On December 29, 2015, the High Court of Justice (HCJ) rejected the request for further hearing and stay of execution, filed by HaMoked following the court judgment approving the punitive demolition of the home in Jabal al-Mukabber. According to the state, the targeted apartment was the home of the assailant who perpetrated an attack against Israelis on Malkhei Yisrael St., Jerusalem on October 13, 2015. One of the petition’s central issues was the question of the veracity of the identification of the assailant’s home: the military issued a demolition order for the ground-floor apartment in the three-floor building owned by the extended family; While, according to statements given by the assailant’s father, sister, and wife, the man had lived with his wife and children in an adjacent one-floor building, which the family owns as well.

In the request for further hearing, HaMoked asserted that evidence which the state had presented and on which the majority judgement was founded – was meagre, inconclusive and uncompelling. As such, HaMoked held, the case lacked the minimal threshold of proof required when dealing with the denial of basic rights, among them the rights to dignified living, housing and property. HaMoked also stressed that the judgment effectively placed on the family the burden of proof over the question of the assailant’s home, rather than on the state, as due, especially in a decision with such far reaching implications for those involved.

Initially, President Naor instructed the state to submit a response to HaMoked’s request, but later, having re-examined the request, decided to dismiss it without receiving the state’s response on the matter.

In her decision, President Naor noted that the majority justices had not set any explicit rule in the issues raised in the applicants’ request – neither in the issue of the evidentiary threshold required for the demolition nor in the issue of the burden of persuasion. Therefore, ruled President Naor, there was no call for “the holding of an exceptional and rare proceeding such as a further hearing” (emphasis in original).

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