Supreme Court Denies Request of Attorney General and Municipalities for a Second Hearing in Arabic Language Case

On 14 August 2003, the Supreme Court of Israel by Justice Eliyahu Matza, denied the request of Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein and the Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Lod, Ramle, and Natseret Illit municipalities for a second hearing on a case involving the use of the Arabic language on all traffic, warning, and other informational signs in these mixed Arab-Jewish cities. The request for a second hearing followed the Supreme Court's 2-1 decision, delivered in July 2002, requiring these municipalities to post all new signs in Arabic immediately, and to add Arabic to all existing signs within four years.

In June 1999, Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) filed a petition to the Supreme Court against these mixed-city municipalities, demanding that they add Arabic to the signs in their jurisdictions. At the time of the filing of the petition, the signs appeared only in Hebrew and/or in English. The petitioners' argued that since Arabic is an official language in Israel together with the Hebrew, according to Article 82 of the Palestine Order-in-Council (1922), the municipalities must post signs in at least both languages. This law, which was originally codified under the British Mandate, was later adopted by the Knesset and became part of Israeli law.

In July 2002, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the petitioners' request. Chief Justice Aharon Barak and Justice Dalia Dorner delivered the majority opinion. Chief Justice Barak reasoned that the right to equality, the freedom to use one's own language, and the special status of the Arabic language as opposed to other minority languages in Israel, mandated that the mixed-city municipalities use Arabic on their informational signs. Justice Dorner, in reaching the same result, relied on Article 82 of the Palestine Order-in-Council (1922), namely, the official status of the Arabic language in Israel. Justice Mishael Heshin, who wrote a minority opinion, argued that the majority decision constitutes the recognition of collective rights for the Arab minority that finds no basis in Israeli law. In his opinion, this politically sensitive issue is non-justiciable, and the appropriate forum to deal with the matter is the Knesset. Despite this favorable ruling, the Court did not decide that the Arabic language is equal in status to the Hebrew language; in fact, all three justices stressed the superiority and dominance of the Hebrew language in Israel.

Following the Court's decision, in August and September 2002, the municipalities and the Attorney General requested a second hearing. They claimed that an additional hearing on the case should be held as the Court's judgment sets forth a precedent as to the official status of the Arabic language and recognizes collective rights for the Arab minority in Israel.

In the four-page judgment delivered last week, Justice Matza ruled that the Court's 2002 decision did not constitute a broad precedent regarding the status of the Arabic language in Israel. He explained that the decision applies only to the mixed-city municipalities, especially since the judgment of the majority - Justices Barak and Dorner, relied on different arguments and legal bases, although they arrived at the same outcome regarding the case. Further, Justice Matza stated that the denial of the request for a second hearing relates directly to the socio-political character of the issue, namely, that the requesters have “other venues,” more suitable than the Supreme Court, to contend with this issue. Adalah Attorney Jamil Dakwar and ACRI Attorney Yousef Jabareen and Auni Bana submitted the 1999 petition to the Supreme Court. Adalah Attorney Marwan Dalal and ACRI Attorney Auni Bana represented the organizations in challenging the motions for a second hearing.

H.C. 4112/99, Adalah, et. al. v. Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality, et. al.