Following attempts to amend the law to allow local
authorities to cover routine maintenance costs at chareidi
educational institutions run by the municipality, MK Rabbi
Moshe Gafni attacked Atty. Amnon de Hartoch, head of the
Justice Ministry's Support Department, for trying to sabotage
the government and the Knesset's efforts to amend the law.
Rabbi Gafni claims that de Hartoch's advice to the government
and the Knesset on how to write the law was calculated to set
up the law to be struck down by the High Court and to invite
the incitement of various segments of the population against
the chareidi sector.
In a letter sent on Monday to Deputy Finance Minister Rabbi
Meshulam Nahari, Rabbi Gafni says the amendment proposal
should be advanced immediately in order to make available to
chareidi schools the same local authority funding provided to
government schools, similar to the parallel funding from the
state budget. He also repeated Rabbi Nahari's remarks, made
at a meeting of parents' committees on Motzei Shabbos in
Jerusalem, according to which Atty. de Hartoch is demanding
that the law apply to all recognized educational institutions
— secular and fully private as well as religious and
semi- public — in accordance with his interpretation of
the Human Dignity and Liberty Foundation Law. De Hartoch also
claims that although the Budget Foundations Law makes
chareidi schools eligible for the same funding that
government schools receive, the law cannot be extended to the
local authorities after the Foundation Law has already been
legislated.
"It is not the job of Atty. de Hartoch, who is just in charge
of support funding at the Attorney General's Office, to be
involved in the area of legal advice and legislation," says
MK Rabbi Gafni, adding, "The government does not have to
accept all of the advice it receives in the area of
legislation and the Knesset is authorized to legislate or
refrain from doing so as it sees fit."
Rabbi Gafni argues that Chinuch Atzmai and Maayan Hachinuch
HaTorani function as official government organizations in
every respect, except for their pedagogical independence and
their independence in hiring. Unlike the private schools,
their general accountant is from the Finance Ministry, no
funding is released without his approval and in accordance
with his criteria, and also proper administration
certificates are not issued and schools and classes are not
opened without Education Ministry approval. This shows that
the government is very involved in these institutions in ways
that are not found among the regular private schools.
"Atty. de Hartoch knows that the government will not approve
extending the law to apply to all recognized educational
institutions, as this includes many Arab schools and elite
private Jewish schools," says Rabbi Gafni, implying that de
Hartoch is insisting that the law apply to all recognized
institutions based on the Human Dignity and Liberty
Foundation Law as part of a bid to prevent its passage.
Rabbi Gafni says that this foundation law does not relate to
equality, noting that ten years after the law was legislated
the Knesset passed a law requiring the local authorities to
pay out-of-town tuition fees for primary school students who
attend the state public schools as well as at Chinuch Atzmai
and Maayan Hachinuch HaTorani schools, placing the chareidi
chains within the category of recognized education without
any challenges to the law. The law does not require payment
of these tuition fees if the student attends a regular
private school.
Furthermore Rabbi Gafni claims that the legal opinions of
Atty. de Hartoch and Atty. Chavilio are based on a decision
by the Tel Aviv Court for Administrative Matters against an
NGO in Petach Tikva "from which they derive their erroneous
conclusion as applying to all educational institutions and
their funding by the local authorities," while ignoring
another decision by the same court, in a petition filed by
Rabbi Gafni, that required the Kadima Local Council to
allocate funding for security at the Chinuch Atzmai school in
its jurisdiction — indicating that the court did not
consider such funding as beyond the law.
As such, in his letter to Rabbi Nahari, Rabbi Gafni writes,
"The government must present the law that was supposed to be
approved five months ago in accordance with your coalition
agreement or else support the private amendment I submitted
not long ago and which is legally supported by the Knesset
Legal Bureau."
During a meeting of the Knesset Constitution Committee,
Attorney General Mani Mazuz admitted that he does not
investigate all of the complaints he receives against de
Hartoch. Mazuz was responding to Rabbi Gafni's claim there is
"deliberate and systematic scheming" on the part of de
Hartoch in all matters related to support criteria that
affect the chareidi sector. Rabbi Gafni and others have
submitted numerous complaints against the behavior of de
Hartoch, but there is no response from the authorities.
Mazuz denied the chareidi public is the victim of systematic
scheming and said as head of a system of over 1,000 jurists
it would be impossible for him to handle every matter
referred to him.
