Israel\u2019s High Court of Justice began hearing petitions Monday seeking to overturn a law that bars police from arresting ultra-Orthodox students who evade mandatory military service, as the attorney general and the Knesset\u2019s legal adviser argued the measure is unconstitutional and should be struck down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The law, passed by the governing coalition earlier this month, would suspend arrests of ultra-Orthodox draft evaders for seven months. Less than 24 hours after its passage, the High Court issued a temporary order freezing its implementation, citing concerns that the measure is discriminatory because ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers would be shielded from arrest while other draft evaders would remain subject to criminal enforcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The government is boycotting the proceedings and did not send representatives to the hearing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg is presiding over the nine-judge panel, which also includes Justices Daphne Barak-Erez, David Mintz, Yael Willner, Ofer Grosskopf, Alex Stein, Gila Canfy Steinitz, Yechiel\u00a0Kasher\u00a0and Ruth Ronnen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Attorney Enar Helman,\u00a0representing\u00a0Attorney General Gali\u00a0Baharav-Miara, urged the court to invalidate the law, calling it \u201can invalid and harmful law\u201d that \u201cdoes not meet even one component of the limitation clause.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Helman argued that lawmakers ignored repeated legal warnings during the legislative process. \u201cThe red lights were there from the beginning,\u201d he said, adding that \u201ca law that harms and creates discrimination in criminal enforcement cannot stand even for a week. Such a law cannot be legislated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Attorney Yitzhak Barat,\u00a0representing\u00a0the Knesset Legal Adviser, also urged the court to invalidate the measure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no choice but to strike down the law,\u201d Barat said, arguing it violated the Knesset\u2019s own legislative procedures and Israel\u2019s Basic Laws while creating unequal treatment by preventing criminal enforcement against ultra-Orthodox draft evaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Around 72,000 ultra-Orthodox men between the ages of 18 and 24 are currently eligible for military service but have ignored conscription orders. The Israel Defense Forces has repeatedly said in recent months that it urgently needs 12,000\u00a0additional\u00a0recruits as fighting\u00a0continues on\u00a0multiple fronts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s High Court of Justice began hearing petitions Monday seeking to overturn a law that bars police from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-563238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}