JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Israel’s High Court ruled Wednesday that the country cannot restrict the entry of citizens into Israel as this is unconstitutional. The ruling states that the restrictions must end Saturday, just two days before a general election and after two months in which numerous Israelis have languished abroad without any way of returning to their homeland.
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The judges ruled that the current restrictions which only allow 3,000 Israelis to return each day are a violation of basic civil rights and are not based on concrete data and information about infection levels in the various countries where they are residing.
The current rules exempt from the quota new immigrants, essential foreign workers, professional athletes and relatives of Israelis who need to visit Israel under special circumstances, but the judges stated that these policies harm rights which are “at the core of the democratic fabric of life.” The judges also noted the fact that Israelis abroad would be denied the opportunity to vote in the March 23 elections and added that the restrictions were placed without prior notice and without a date for their termination.
“The restrictions were set without the government having any data about the number of citizens abroad who want to return to the country, there was no explanation why the daily cap was set at 3,000, and the impression created is that instead of investing efforts and resources in enforcing quarantine… the government preferred to impose a regime of entry quotas, which is more simple to implement but infringes much more on basic rights,” they wrote.
“This conclusion is magnified by the fact that Israel is the only democratic country in the world where citizens have been so sweepingly limited in entering their country.”
The court decision was sharply criticized both by the director-general of the Health Ministry and the coronavirus project manager as well as by a wide range of politicians. The health officials expressed concern that variants which are not protected by the present vaccines could enter the country if the borders are opened unconditionally, sparking a new wave of infections. On a flight arriving from Ethiopia Tuesday, seven people were found to be positive to COVID-19 and the fear is that if tens of thousands will enter it will not be possible to monitor those infected and isolate them.
“It is unfortunate that we are now putting the encouraging morbidity figures at risk. The High Court decision is likely to bring Israel closer to a high wave of morbidity,” coronavirus manager Nachman Ash said in a statement.
An anonymous Health Ministry official called the ruling “idiotic” and said the judges “stabbed us in the back.”
“Everyone’s an epidemiologist now,” the official told Ynet.
interesting, I did not know that Israel had a constitution. curious to read it.
where can I find it?