HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual has long been engaging in
a legal battle for the inclusion of trained Arabic interpreters in medical-committee hearings of the National Insurance Institute (NII) in East Jerusalem.
In November 2012,
HaMoked petitioned the High Court of Justice (HCJ) to order the NII to include a professional interpreter in committees reviewing disability-pension claims by East Jerusalem residents. In its response to the petition, the state insisted that the current arrangement was proper and sufficient and added that Arabic-speaking employees at the NII branch office in East Jerusalem had recently started providing Arabic interpretation during medical-committee hearings, when it was needed.
Following the HCJ's criticism of the NII's position, the state repeated its previous offer, to assign an NII employee to serve as an interpreter during committee hearings. HaMoked asserted that this was the same solution that the court had dismissed already, and insisted that the NII must employ independent professional interpreters. In the end, the court issued an order nisi instructing the NII to explain why it should not do so.
In its response to the court order, the state retracted its position and announced its decision to include a professional interpreter in medical committees, provided that the claimant notifies ahead of time that he or she wants an interpreter during the hearing; the state added that employment of professional interpreters would become effective within six months at the most.
