In 1997, an Israeli resident from Jerusalem married a West Bank resident. In June 1998, she filed a family unification application for him, and in January 2000, he received an Israeli stay permit, which was renewed periodically. According to the graduated procedure for family unification of that time, a foreign spouse was to receive stay permits for a period of 27 months, at the end of which, he would have been entitled for temporary status. In the husband's case, the temporary status entitlement was to begin in April 2002, counting back from the approval date of their application. However, this did not happen due to unjustified and protracted delays of the Ministry of Interior. Furthermore, following the enactment of the
Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (Temporary Order), 5763 – 2003, placing a near complete freeze on the entire issue of family unification, the graduated procedure itself had been terminated. The husband was allowed to remain at his home in Jerusalem only through stay permits, without Israeli status in Israel, depriving him, thus, among other things, of access to social benefits and the ability to run his life with a modicum of stability.
In 2008,
the Supreme Court ruled in the Dufash case (AAA 8849/03) that it was possible to upgrade the status of a foreign spouse who had already entered the family unification process, provided that an upgrade had been denied due to an error unjustified delay of the Ministry of Interior. In July 2009, following these legal developments, HaMoked reapplied on behalf of the wife to the Ministry of Interior, to grant temporary residency to her husband. A year later, the Ministry of Interior rejected the application based on the alleged fraudulence of the documents which proved the family's center of life was in Israel. This conclusion was based on the findings of an investigation by National Insurance Institute (NII). HaMoked objected to the decision and explained the facts surrounding the allegedly false information, reaffirming the husband's eligibility for temporary status.
On October 31, 2010, the chair of the ministry's Appellate Committee for Foreigners issued her decision. Concurring with HaMoked's argument, the decision found that a status upgrade was indeed justified in view of the fact that if the Ministry of Interior had acted otherwise, the husband would have held stay permits for the entire 27 month period, and accordingly, would have qualified for temporary residency prior to the government resolution. However, the committee chair concluded that the information on which the application was based was false and so dismissed the objection.
In January 2011,
HaMoked filed an administrative petition to have the Ministry Interior grant the husband temporary Israeli status. HaMoked asserted the petitioner never lived outside Jerusalem, and that in relying on NII's investigations, the Ministry of Interior was basing its decisions on inadequate, and poorly founded factual grounds, constructed without due consideration of all pertinent fact. During the hearing, the Ministry of Interior clarified that were it not for the suspected falsification of documents, the petitioner would have qualified for a status upgrade.
On April 27, 2011,
the Court for Administrative Affairs granted HaMoked's petition. The judge determined that the factual grounds in the present case were insufficient to prove the petitioners had supplied false information, and ruled the husband's status be upgraded to temporary residence – 13 years after they first applied for family unification.
