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26 Iyar 5759 - May 12, 1999 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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High Court Removes Hinderences to Marrying Foreigners

by Yated Ne'eman Staff

The Israeli High Court ruled that the Interior Ministry policy requiring foreigners married to Israelis to leave the country before their residence application can be considered is unreasonable.

The court further ruled that the ministry's policy of considering the citizenship application of a resident foreigner married to an Israeli more than five years after its submission is untenable, and therefore nullified.

The rulings followed 28 petitions against the ministry's policy by 31 intermarried couples.

Previously, Interior Ministry policy allowed for a non-Jewish foreigner married to a Jewish Israeli to receive all the benefits accorded a Jew under the Law of Return, including citizenship.

In 1995, the policy was changed, such that a non-Jewish foreigner married to an Israeli could no longer receive the Law of Return benefits, and would only have his or her application for citizenship considered once he or she left the country.

Furthermore, according to the new policy, citizenship eligibility would be contingent upon the non-Jew in question having received permanent resident status, itself only granted five years after application.

The ministry justified the change in policy on the grounds of the recent proliferation of fictitious marriages between Israelis and non-Jewish foreigners in order to secure for the latter residence in Israel.

In the ruling the court called the new policy unreasonable, saying there is no evidence it has effected a reduction in fictitious marriages.

"A foreigner intent on securing extended residence in Israel via a fictitious marriage will not be deterred by the prospect of a few months' waiting period abroad, while the foreigner and Israeli who are genuinely married will certainly suffer hardships if they are forced either to separate, or to leave the country together for a number of months."

The justices further said that verifying the authenticity of a marriage is far more difficult if one or both spouses are abroad than if both are in Israel.

The High Court similarly nullified the Interior Ministry policy of only considering the citizenship application of a resident foreigner married to an Israeli more than six years after its submission. The ruling drew on a citizenship law that requires the government to facilitate the naturalization of non-Israelis married to Israelis.

The justices did, however, allow that, in cases where the non- Jewish spouse is residing in Israel illegally, the couple should be called upon to provide strong evidence of the authenticity of their marriage.

Deputy Housing Minister Rabbi Meir Porush, of United Torah Judaism, said that "the Supreme Court has denied the Interior Ministry its right to expel aliens from the country, who have married Jewish women in fictitious ceremonies.

"The court has put a time-bomb on our doorstep which includes societal explosives which are liable to be strewn over large area," he said.

Rabbi Porush added that the decisive majority in Israel does not want to absorb hundreds of thousands of foreign workers in the country who will receive citizenship by means of their marriages to female citizens of the state.

He stressed the need to limit the authority of the High Court by means of legislation, and said that a number of distinguished jurists and retired judges of the High Court are partners to this demand.

"The UTJ will take steps in the 15th Knesset to enlist a majority for a proposed law that "not everything is judicable," he added.


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