Adalah: Supreme Court rejects disqualification of Joint List, Ra’am and MK Cassif, after pushing Abu Shehadeh out of the race

Following hearings yesterday, 1 October, before an expanded nine-justice panel, the Supreme Court today unanimously overturned the Central Elections Committee’s disqualification of the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra’am). In a separate ruling, a majority of seven justices to two refused to approve the disqualification of Jabha/Hadash MK Ofer Cassif. In all three cases, the court found that the evidence did not meet the standards set in its case law.

Adalah's legal team represented the Joint List, Ra'am, Cassif and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh against the disqualifications attempts. Adalah General Director Dr. Hassan Jabareen, Legal Director Dr. Suhad Bishara, and Adalah Attorneys Hadeel Abu Salih and Ariel Remez argued before the court that the disqualifications disregarded binding precedent, rested on irrelevant or distorted evidence, and were ideologically motivated and racist, targeting every Arab party for exclusion from the Knesset.

Today’s decision also notes that, since Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy, the court will not issue a ruling in his case. This follows the announcement by Supreme Court President Isaac Amit at yesterday’s hearing that a majority of the justices supported upholding his disqualification.

In response, Adalah stated: “The court’s rulings confirm what we argued before the court: the motions against the Joint List, Ra’am and MK Cassif rested on old, irrelevant or distorted evidence that fell far short of the ‘critical mass’ of evidence required by the law. These disqualifications should never have been approved by the Central Elections Committee. It was also clear throughout that even those who filed the motions knew they would fail. This entire process was a deliberate attempt to delegitimize Palestinian citizens and their parliamentary representatives, and to turn racism against Palestinians into election propaganda. The same scrutiny was not applied to Sami Abu Shehadeh, who was unjustly pushed out of the elections in an unprecedented and dangerous move by the Supreme Court. Adalah will continue to defend the rights of Palestinian citizens to be represented and to stand for election.”