Netanyahu welcomes ruling on migrants, others attack it

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday said he was pleased with a High Court of Justice decision that upheld a law regulating the stay in Israel of illegal migrants, while limiting the amount of time that such migrants can be detained.

According to a statement from his office, the prime minister “expressed satisfaction that the High Court of Justice has accepted in principle the state’s position, according to which the illegal influx of labor migrants is unacceptable and that they may be held in order to achieve the necessary deterrence. The ruling will be studied and the state will act to implement it.”

But aside from Netanyahu, politicians on both right and left were dissatisfied by a decision that didn’t fully endorse either the government’s position or that of the organizations that appealed against it.

In recent years, an estimated 47,000 African migrants, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan, have managed to illegally enter Israel via Egypt seeking jobs or asylum.

Tuesday’s ruling was the third time the High Court of Justice addressed the law or one of its revisions since it was first enacted in 2013. In previous rulings it sent the law back to the government for further amendments, deeming it unconstitutional.

According to the ruling, the government will not be allowed to hold migrants in detention facilities for a period exceeding 12 months, as opposed to the 20-month period that the government has been imposing. The ruling will force the state to release hundreds of migrants currently held in the Holot detention facility near Israel’s southern border with Egypt. Aside from disputing the length of the detention period, the nine-judge panel ratified the law.

Eroding state power?

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan was disappointed with the ruling. The minister, who previously served as interior minister in the previous Netanyahu cabinet, said that as the person who “drafted the current version of the law to prevent infiltration, I am deeply sorry about the high court decision, which severely harms the state’s efforts to prevent illegal infiltrators from setting down roots in the cities of Israel.”

Erdan said the detention period of 20 months was decided after serious deliberation with the state attorney and his team and had taken into consideration the migrants’ personal liberties, for instance by allowing them to leave the Holot detention facility during daylight hours.

He said the High Court of Justice “has positioned itself as a ‘supreme-legislator,’ determining the specifics of legal arrangements instead of parliament.” In such a situation, he added, “the Knesset has no choice” but to pass legislation enabling lawmakers to overcome High Court rulings with a special majority.

Another vocal opponent of the court was Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home), who aired her criticism on Facebook even before the decision was published.

Shaked said Tuesday that she would post videos “every two hours” until the ruling showing incidences of migrants harassing Israelis or committing petty crimes. She took down her Facebook post when one commentator noted that a video she posted showed an incident that occurred in Turkey, not Israel.

Following the ruling, Shaked said, “It’s important in a democratic state that the definition of authorities and roles among the different branches be clear.”

She added that “we did not need to get to a third hearing on the issue of the Infiltrators’ Law, and the hands of the legislative branch should not have been tied as they were.”

Israel does not have a constitution, but rather a series of basic laws that together form its constitutional underpinnings. The High Court of Justice often weighs in on the constitutionality of laws that are not defined as basic laws.

Tuesday’s ruling “is the reason why we need a Basic Law: Legislation, in order to normalize authorities between the legislative and judicial authorities,” Shaked added, alluding to legislation that would enable the Knesset to overturn court decisions to repeal laws deemed unconstitutional.

‘Moral whitewashing’

Meanwhile, rights groups that had filed an appeal against the law, prompting the court to weigh in on it, said the ruling shows that “the time has come for appropriate policy that will benefit the residents of south Tel Aviv as well as the asylum seekers.”

A joint statement by all groups acting on behalf of the migrants said the court “clarified for the third time that the lawmakers did not invest enough thought and discussion before ordering the denial of freedom from thousands of people. The court ruled that holding people at the Holot [detention facility] for 20 months is not constitutional and that anyone held there for over a year will be released immediately.

“The policy toward asylum seekers cannot be summed up in denying liberty for masses of innocent people or completely neglecting the issue,” the statement added.

The statement also called on the government to issue work permits and incentivize migrants to work.

Zahava Gal-on, the leader of the left-wing Meretz party, said that the court should have struck down the law for the third time

“Nothing can morally whitewash the jailing of people without trial, with an effort to make them tired of living and return them to places from where they escaped without even examining their refuge status requests,” she said.

MK Michal Rozin, also from Meretz, said that the court’s ruling “reminds the government of Israel yet again that its job is not to make people miserable but to find a constitutional, proportionate and fair solution. Twelve months are time enough to exhaust all procedures for identifying and processing the status of any illegal alien. As soon as the state chooses not to deport a person, there is no use in continuing to hold them in the desert,with nothing to do and at the expense of the public. I call on Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to immediately cease her incitement against asylum seekers and against the court.”