In the morning of February 20, 2020,
The High Court of Justice (HCJ) rejected HaMoked’s petitions against the punitive demolition of an apartment and a house in the West Bank, the homes of the relatives of two Palestinian men indicted for the August 23, 2019 attack in which Israeli Rina Shnerb was killed.
However, HaMoked learned of the judgment only through a phone call from one of the petitioners, who herself found out from the media that her home would in fact be demolished. Thus, details and quotes from the judgment were widely circulated in various news outlets, before the judgment was published on the Supreme Court’s website and before HaMoked was formally informed.
On February 23, 2020, HaMoked sent a complaint regarding this matter to the Supreme Court President, and voiced its concern that the judgment’s premature release to the press constituted contempt of the legal proceeding, especially given the extremist incitement surrounding the punitive demolitions of homes. On March 4, 2020, HaMoked received the response of the President’s Office, as follows: “An examination we conducted with the Bureaus of the Justices who wrote the judgment, revealed that due to an administration failure a notice was not sent to the parties, as required, before the judgment was distributed. We apologize for the failure… we will take care to reiterate the instructions on the matter with the relevant officials to prevent this from recurring in future”.
