In a precedent-setting ruling issued in December 2007, the Jerusalem Administrative Court accepted our petition and ordered the Interior Ministry to publish the full procedures of the Population Registry within 30 days. ACRI, together with four other human rights organizations, submitted a joint petition to the Jerusalem Administrative Court in May 2007 demanding that the Interior Ministry publish the full and updated list of Population Registry regulations. The petition stressed that the Population Registry has extensive authority concerning the realization of people’s basic rights and freedoms in Israel. Nonetheless, the regulations which govern the work of the Population Registry officials are not published in an effective manner; are not accessible to the public; are hidden from Knesset Committee of the Interior; are often withheld from the courts; change frequently; and are sometimes even unknown to the Population Registry staff responsible for their implementation. As a result, the rights of thousands of individuals across the country are severely infringed.
Justice Tzur noted in the ruling that the petition is of “the utmost importance to the public in general and to those people who are dependent on the services of the Registry in particular.” The Court ruled that the procedures must be made easily available for public scrutiny in the Population Registry offices throughout the country; that they must be published on the Web site of the Interior Ministry; and that they must be regularly updated in accordance with any changes to the procedures.
