June 26 – July 10 2011
A special roundup of non-anti-democratic Knesset work from the past couple of weeks, including important work on social, economic, political and civil rights issues.
Recent Legislation
June 26 | Including Affordable Housing in the Planning and Building Reform
In the past year, ACRI has been working to promote a reform to the Planning and Building Law, which has been in place almost since the founding of the State of Israel. ACRI and other members of the Coalition for Affordable Housing in Israel are advancing amendments that focus on social and economic rights, including equal representation in planning committees, public participation, transparency, and the inclusion of representatives of social rights organizations in planning committees.
The planning and building reform is currently discussed in the weekly meetings of a joint committee of the Knesset Economic Affairs and Internal Affairs committees. On June 27, the committee discussed the affordable housing provisions to the law, proposed by the Coalition for Affordable Housing. The chairperson of the committee, MK Amnon Cohen (Shas), instructed the government to announce, within two weeks, its position regarding the provisions suggested by the coalition.
June 28 | Preventing Meetings between a Prisoner and a Specific Lawyer
On June 28, the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee discussed a government-sponsored amendment to the Prisons Ordinance, submitted by MK, which seeks to dangerously expand the authorities of the Israeli Prison Service to prevent “security prisoners” from meeting with a specific attorney. This infringement on prisoners’ rights can take place on the basis of confidential evidence and with no need to prove any problematic conduct of the lawyer.
Before the discussion, ACRI sent a position paper to the members of the committee, urging them to oppose this bill. According to ACRI, the existing law already enables the prevention of a meeting with a lawyer if there is a suspicion that the meeting will be used to commit an offense that endangers the public or prison order; this can also be done on the basis of confidential evidence. The proposed amendment seeks to add a further, vague cause for preventing a meeting with a lawyer, if “such a meeting will enable the transfer of information between prisoners or between them and external sources, and there is cause for concern that this transfer of information has to do with the activities of a terrorist organization.” The proposed amendment also seeks to extend the time period from 6 days to the maximum possible until judicial review. The proposed bill not only infringes on prisoners’ rights for representation, but also on the lawyers’ rights for dignity, freedom of occupation, and their good name.
July 4 | National Housing Committees Bill
This government sponsored bill, which was approved in its first reading on 4 July 2011, aims to establish, for a temporary period of time, National Housing Committees (NHCs) for large-scale housing plans, while bypassing regular planning procedures. The government claims that establishing NHCs will minimize bureaucracy and will increase the supply of apartments in Israel, thereby helping in solving the current housing crisis.
According to ACRI, Bimkom – Planners for Planning rights, and the Association for Distributive Justice, establishing NHCs as a solution for the housing crisis will bypass planning procedures and will lead to flawed housing plans, which will not provide a minimal quality of life for the residents; this, while also severely harming the environment and infringing on the public’s right to voice opinions regarding housing plans.
According to the organizations, the State must indeed examine solutions to shorten the waiting period for the approval of housing plans in Israel, but this must be done while maintaining planning considerations, a high professional standard, and public participation. The NHC Bill will therefore cause more harm than good, and will turn land reserves in the center of Israel to homogenous neighborhoods for wealthy residents, expanding socioeconomic gaps.
July 3-4 | Privatization of Healthcare in Schools
On July 4, the Knesset Labor, Welfare, and Health Committee discussed the privatization of healthcare services in Israeli schools and the problematic reports regarding the performance of the private company that was chosen to provide these services.
ACRI submitted a position paper to the committee, stating that it is strongly opposed to the continued privatization of student healthcare, and calling on the Ministries of Health and Finance to return this service to the authority of the Ministry of Health. ACRI’s position is that such an important service must remain in the hands of the State, and that privatization of healthcare harms socio-economically disadvantaged communities and those living in the peripheries.
One day prior to that, on July 3, a private bill was submitted by MK Orly Levy (Yisrael Beitenu) and MK Haim Katz (Likud) to the Ministerial Committee on Legislation. This private bill, supported by ACRI, seeks to prevent outsourcing of student healthcare services. The committee postponed the discussion of this bill by three weeks, since the Deputy Minister of Health, Yaacov Litzman, announced that he has an idea to solve this situation; Litzman has not yet disclosed his possible solution.
On related news, on July 5 the Public Network for Health Equity in Israel, of which ACRI is a member, held a press conference calling on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to establish an inter-ministerial body under the auspices of the Ministry of Health (to include Ministries of Health, Finance, Welfare, Education, Industry, Trade and Labor, Environment, Transportation, and others). This inter-ministerial body should create a long-term program for narrowing Israel’s gaps in health.
The members of the network presented two position papers intended to better health care and to close existing gaps in health in Israel: “10 Principles for Health Equality” and “Impact of Social Factors on Health” (click links to download).
July 10 | Raising Women’s Retirement Age
On Sunday, the Ministerial Committee on Legislation postponed the discussion of a private bill, proposed by MK Dalia Itzik (Kadima), which seeks to legally fix women’s retirement age as 62. This private bill came in response to the recent announcement of the Public Committee to Examine the Retirement Age for Women, which recommended to raise women’s retirement age to 67 (or at least 64). MK Itzik is currently considering to submit this bill for a preliminary hearing without government support. The public committee has not yet submitted any bill to raise women’s retirement age.
ACRI previously presented its position to the public committee – against raising women’s retirement age, because many women are ejected from the labor market even before the retirement age as it is, and raising it will, therefore, make them lose their rights to pensionary and other benefits for two more years. Giving equal conditions to two groups, one of which is systematically disadvantaged, does not promote equality – but rather perpetuates discrimination.
