High Court gives Interior Minister Sa’ar 30 days to decide on conditioning municipal tax discount on military service

Following the government’s decision to appoint Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar to also serve as interior minister, the High Court of Justice orders Sa’ar to decide within 30 days whether and how he will condition municipal tax discounts available to low-income households in compliance with military service orders.

The court also orders the transportation and finance ministers to decide within 21 days if public transport discounts can also be conditioned on military service compliance.

The decision comes in response to petitions from the Israel Be Free religious freedom group, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel and other watchdog groups demanding the implementation of rulings by the High Court requiring the government to take effective action to draft ultra-Orthodox men into the army.

The court states that if the government takes practical steps to implement its previous rulings, it would be able to step back from issuing operative orders to the government on the issue.

“As we have already emphasized, this is not ‘merely’ a matter of complying with the provisions of a ruling, but rather one of enforcing the law,” the court adds, in reference to the fact that there is no legal justification for failing to enforce conscription of ultra-Orthodox men.

A law providing blanket military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students expired in July 2023, and the High Court ruled in June 2024 that such men must therefore enlist. The government failed to enforce the ruling, however, leading to a further ruling in November 2025 ordering the government to take practical steps to enforce the draft of ultra-Orthodox men, but the government has dragged its feet on implementing that ruling as well.

In April this year, the court issued a further decision ordering the government to take operative steps, such as weighing conditioning the municipal tax discount on military service. The absence of a permanent interior minister since July 2025 has delayed implementation of that order.