In October 2010, the Ministry of Interior decided to
upgrade to permanent residency the status of two daughters of a Jerusalem resident. The decision came more than four years after the submission date of the application for status upgrade and only after HaMoked had resorted to filing a petition to the Court for Administrative Affairs.
On March 21, 2011,
HaMoked filed a motion to impose trial expences on the Ministry of Interior. HaMoked asserted it had filed the petition because the Ministry of Interior had failed to respond to HaMoked's objection, breaching its own regulations, and after complete exhaustion of remedies. HaMoked added that the status upgrade had been granted only followed the filing of the petition.
The Ministry of Interior countered that its response "had been delayed due to the quantity of objections submitted to the committee, putting it under a heavy load", and that the decision to upgrade was not due to the filing of the petition in itself.
The Jerusalem district Court accepted HaMoked's motion and ordered the state to pay the petitioners' expenses in the sum of NIS 12,000. The judge ruled that the proceedings in this case had been prolonged "beyond reasonable bounds" and commented that the Ministry of Interior had delivered its decision after a period of more than quadruple the period prescribed in the ministerial regulations. The judge also determined that the petition and its hearing by the court "served as a major spur to the delivery of an affirmative decision."
In its decision on expences –
as in its ruling on the petition – the court expressed stern criticism of the Ministry of Interior's conduct and its administration of proceedings of the Appellate Committee for Foreigners. Judge Moshe Yoed HaCohen determined that the protracted proceedings of the committee, established to reduce the load on the courts, resulted in an increase of administrative petitions to the courts, effectively failing its essential purpose.
