Article74 Magazine

In January 1997, the High Court rejected an appeal by Fares Bustani, aged 47, a Jerusalemite living in Jordan and still holding a valid Jerusalem ID. Bustani, represented by Atty. Usama Halabi, had argued that although he went to Jordan to seek work, he continued to return to Palestine at least once a year for the 20 years he lived outside, and he was never informed that a valid re-entry visa would not protect his residency rights in the city. The Court, however, accepted the Interior Ministry’s argument that physical presence, i.e. “center of life”, was the precondition for the status of permanent residency in Israel. A similar ruling defeated another case represented by Atty. Andre Rosental in March 1997.  

Atty. Lea Tsemel and Atty. Eliahu Abrams, on behalf of ACRI, AIC, DCI-Israel, HaMoked and PHR, are currently engaged in a new effort for challenging the Ministry’s policy in the High Court. They argue that their clients possessed valid Israel re-entry visas when their permanent residency status was revoked, and that they had never been informed of the fact that their valid documents were insufficient to protect their residency rights in Jerusalem. The petitioners will support their argument by means of affidavits collected from former Ministry and Jerusalem municipality personnel confirming that the policy - until 1994 - was to renew travel documents regularly, to consider holders of valid documents residents of Israel, even if they overstayed the seven-year time limit set by the law, and that no announcement was ever made prior to the change of this procedure. The petitioners believe that challenges of the new policy of ID card confiscations in the Israeli courts, conducted in coordination with human rights organizations, are correct and important, despite the failures of the past. This especially since dozens of petitions by private Israeli lawyers, not familiar with the matter, are currently scheduled with the State Attorney’s office.