The Petition (H)
On 25 January 2006, Adalah submitted a petition and motion for an urgent hearing to the Tel Aviv District Court against the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Municipality of Ness Ziona, following the cancellation of bus transport for six Arab pupils living in Ness Ziona to the Al-Jawarish School in the town of Ramle. Transportation for the children was stopped in September 2005, the beginning of the current school year, without the prior notification of their families. The petition was filed by Adalah Attorney Morad El-Sana in Adalah’s own name and on behalf of the six children and their parents from the Abu Obeid family, who have been living in Ness Ziona since 1960.
The Al-Jawarish School is located 12 kilometers away from the children’s homes. The Municipality of Ness Ziona had been providing transportation for the pupils for years before the recent decision to cancel it, claiming that the children’s families do not have addresses in the town of Ness Ziona itself. The children’s families have been forced to drive them to school or leave them at home when they were unable to find a way to take them.
In the petition, Adalah demanded that the MOE and Municipality recommence the transportation of the children to their school, since access to school is a fundamental part of the basic right to education guaranteed by the Compulsory Education Law – 1949. The MOE’s general administrative regulations also protect this right, and the Municipality is obliged to organize transportation for those living within the borders of its authority, as do the families of the children. Therefore, the failure of the responsible authorities to provide transportation for the children constitutes a violation of the rule of law.
As Adalah emphasized in the petition, in addition to placing an economic burden on their parents, “the discontinuation of transportation of the pupils to their school in Ramle represents a violation of their basic right to education, which in turn leads to their dropping out of the education system.”
Administrative Appeal No. 1104/06, Farhan Abu Obeid, et. al. v. The Municipality of Ness Ziona and The Ministry of Education (Tel Aviv District Court, case pending)