The Shurat HaDin lawsuit filed with the High Court of Justice calls for the immediate release of the Emanuel parents, alleging the court exceeded its authority when it sentenced them to a two-week jail term.

The petition is against Israel Police and Israel Prison Authority, citing the High Court is not authorized to render such decisions against private citizens, as per the nation’s Basic Law, which stipulates the court’s jurisdiction extends to government agencies, its employees, the nation’s court and rabbinical courts and other public agencies, but not private citizens.

Shurat HaDin maintains the Basic Law is clear and the court simply may not permit itself to issue orders against private citizens.

The petition continues to point out the court felt that based on the case of Lod Taxi Company, in which a driver of the company drove a taxi on a prohibited street and the firm was held accountable, the same holds true here regarding Chinuch Atzmai and the parents. The petitioner however states this is not the case here in Emanuel, and the court in this case exceeded its authority by ordering the parents sent to prison for contempt.

Shurat HaDin points out in the case of Lod Taxi, the district court acted within its judicial authority by rendering its decision against private citizens. In this case however, the court acted outside of the parameters of its judicial authority.

The petition in Emanuel was not filed against the parents and therefore, the court cannot seek to direct the petition and its consequences against those parents. If the petition was filed against the parents, it would have been rejected. The ruling handed down in the case was also not directed at the parents, and therefore, they cannot be pulled into the ruling as they have been when in actuality, the petition was filed against the Ministry of Education and the school.

Attorney Nitzan Darshan-Leitner explains that the court expanded the scope of the petition by stretching it to the maximum, including the parents. Citizens, private individuals, cannot be held accountable for the implementation of a ruling directed at a municipality and the system does offer a number of mechanisms to ensure compliance with a court ruling, but ordaining the parents with the responsibility is not one of those options.

Two of the parents, Rav Yisrael Saviner and Chaim Stern submitted a petition to the court demanding their immediate release, on Friday. Attorney Aviad Visuly explained they were incarcerated unjustifiably. Regarding the court’s decision to find the parents guilty of contempt, the court was compelled to hear testimony and statements from each and every parent. This was not the case and they did not receive their day in court, not factually and not judicially.

The court found them in contempt, based on the Lod Taxi Company case, without hearing their testimony, when in reality, the court veered from its judicial authority to an area under the jurisdiction of the nation’s court system.

Visuly is a known expert in such cases, an ardent champion of justice for the right-wing, who is representing the Emanuel parents’ pro bono due to the gross miscarriage of justice in his opinion.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)