ACRI welcomed the recommendations of the commission appointed to examine Israel’s immigration policy (the Rubenstein commission) with regard to the granting of formal Israeli residency status to migrant workers and their children, and the granting of status to refugees and asylum seekers in Israel. However, ACRI is extremely troubled by the commission’s recommendation to limit residency status for foreign national spouses of Israeli citizens and residents, primarily the spouses of Arab citizens and residents.
Every Israeli citizen and resident has the right to provide their spouse with formal residency status in his/her country of residence; these rights derive from the basic right to family life, equality and privacy. They are also an integral element of the basic right of children to grow up as part of a family, and prohibit the enforced separation of family members (apart from extreme circumstances and specific exceptions which are clearly defined). They also firmly establish the right to a family life in Israel. The State of Israel must ensure that a spouse, who is not Israeli, will be granted residency status, as long as the relationship proves to be genuine and Israel is the center of the applicants’ lives.
ACRI recognizes the fact that the State of Israel is at liberty to refuse residency status to whomever it consider to be a threat to the state and its residents for either security or criminal reasons. However, the decision as to whether or not an individual poses a threat must be based on an evidentiary basis that is specific to that individual, and cannot be based on arbitrary considerations such as the individual’s national origins or national identity.
ACRI also strongly objects to the proposal to impose more stringent financial conditions, which require that at least one member of the couple earn a viable salary, for example, and warns that by so doing the state will create a situation in which the right to family life is dependent upon an individual family’s financial position.
Considerations of national origin, race, and the imposition of financial conditions on family members of Israeli citizens are both illegitimate and discriminatory. The implementation of the commission’s recommendations will result in a severe violation of the right to family life, primarily for Arab residents and citizens, and will create an untenable situation in which families are forced to choose between being uprooted from their homeland, and family life.
The resultant impact will be that family members will be forced apart and children torn apart from their parents for the sole reason that one of their parents is Palestinian, a resident of an Arab country, or as a result of financial hardship. This situation undercuts the very foundations of a democratic regime.
These recommendations dovetail the final hearing of a number of petitions that were submitted to the Supreme Court against the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which denies Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens the right to formal residency status.
On 14.2.06 an expanded panel of 11 judges deliberated on the petitions submitted ACRI and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and other petitions against the aforementioned law. The law, that was enacted by the Knesset in the summer of 2003, and which anchored in law a previous government decision (from 2002), was amended last summer; however, the petitioning organizations made clear – as was evidenced by the state`s response – that the amendments have impacted on only a handful of families out of thousands that are affected by the legislation (and even they are only granted permits which allow them to remain in Israel temporarily). The other families are either forced to live separately from their partner, or with the daily fear of being torn apart from their family. The petitioners emphasized that even after the acceptance of this amendment, the law is still a racist law that differentiates and discriminates between Israeli families on the basis of the national origins of their foreign national spouse, with a resultant and severe violation of their right to family life and equality. Moreover, the law was “justified” by security concerns, which were not supported by any evidentiary basis. The petitions were submitted by Adalah Attorneys, Hassan Jabareen and Orna Kohn, and ACRI Attorneys, Sharon Abraham Weiss and Dan Yakir.
Towards the end of the extensive hearing, in response to claims raised by the state regarding the lack of a legal right for residents of the territories to migrate to Israel, the Supreme Court President, Aharon Barak, made clear that the contents of the petition do not relate to the right to migrate to Israel. The issue under discussion, Barak further emphasized, is the right of Israeli citizens to family life with their partner, and the question is whether or not the law allows for an appropriate balance between this right and the right of Israeli citizens to security.
last updated : 21/02/06
