Court rules law punishing parents for childrens’ rock-throwing illegal

Israel’s High Court of Justice on Thursday ruled that a 2015 amendment which denies child benefits from parents of minors who were convicted of national security-related offenses for the period of their imprisonment was unconstitutional.

The ruling, which was passed by a slim 5-4 majority, ruled that the amendment disproportionately violates the constitutional right to equality, and froze the law for a year to allow the Knesset to order the correction of its flaws.

The petition was filed by the NGO Adalah, a legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, on its behalf and on behalf of the HaMoked NGO, Al-Dameer and the Defence for Children International (DCI) NGO.

Attorney Sausan Zohar of the Adalah Center said in a statement in response to the ruling that “It is clear that there is no constitutional possibility to anchor this vengeful tool within a law that produces one set of laws for Palestinian minor prisoners and another law for minor prisoners in criminal proceedings.” 

“Pensions’ universal purpose must not be used as a deterrent and punitive tool, this is contrary to the most basic principles of criminal law, especially as the amendment was deliberately approved to apply discriminatorily to Palestinian minors,” she added. 

“This ruling is intended to be discriminatory against Palestinian minors. This ruling comes after repeated opportunities given to the state to eliminate or correct the defect and the state must not be given additional opportunities to exercise that wrong logic.”

Regarding the decision to freeze the law for a year while trying to correct it, Sawsan said that “This ruling comes after repeated opportunities given to the state to cancel or correct the defect and no more opportunities should be given to the state to exercise that wrong logic.”

The amendment’s primary purpose when it was introduced in 2015 was to deter minors from throwing rocks at Israeli cars, soldiers and citizens. 

According to the memorandum which originally accompanied the government bill, the reason for its introcution was “the spread of the rock-throwing phenomenon in recent times, and the many risks it entails for the body and property.”