On April 6, 1992, a newborn baby was found on the doorstep of an East Jerusalem orphanage, with nothing to identify her. The director of the orphanage, an Israeli resident Palestinian, took the baby into her care, raised her as a daughter, and was appointed as her guardian by an order of the Sharia Court. The child grew up in the orphanage, without status in the world – exposed to detentions, arrests and deportation and without social security rights; this, because the Ministry of Interior refused to register her in the population registry without her having a birth certificate.
HaMoked has been acting for the registration of the young woman – who is now 22 – since she was 16.
Following a protracted legal battle, the interior ministry's Interministerial Committee on Humanitarian Affairs decided to grant her a visa type B/1, designed for migrant workers and conferring no rights. On December 2, 2012, HaMoked filed an outraged objection against the committee's decision, demanding that the woman be immediately given permanent status in Israel.
On November 6, 2014, the Appellate Committee for Foreigners, accepted HaMoked's claim that granting a tourist visa to the stateless woman did not solve the young woman's predicament, did not promote her case and in fact perpetuated her situation, decided to return the case to the interministerial committee for reconsideration. Following HaMoked's demand for a clear schedule for the interministerial committee's decision, the appellate committee also stressed that "the respondent should take notice of the lengths of time in handling the appellant's request".
Despite this clear statement regarding the processing period, the interministerial committee continued dragging its feet and avoided issuing a new decision. Therefore, on August 11, 2014,
HaMoked filed an appeal to the Appeals Tribunal to instruct the interministerial committee to promptly respond to the young woman's status request.
In the appeal, HaMoked argues that the committee's lack of response contravenes the rules of good governance and infringes on the woman's right to family life; that in avoiding legalizing her status, Israel is violating its obligations under international law; further, that the deliberate delay critically infringes on the woman's human dignity, given that it denies her the right to citizenship, which enables equality before the law, political participation, the right to health, entitlement to social security rights, and bestows legal personality.
