In a sweeping ruling, Israel’s High Court declared on Wednesday that the state must move immediately to put an aggressive enforcement system in place against those in the chareidi community who do not report for the draft.
The decision, issued by Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg together with Justices Dafna Barak-Erez, David Mintz, Yael Wilner, and Ofer Grosskopf, insists that the government implement a plan that deploys both criminal sanctions and wide-ranging financial and civil penalties.
The ruling presents an uncompromising demand: the government must begin “real criminal proceedings” against chareidi draft-evaders and must do so “diligently and swiftly.”
In the court’s view, the rate of prosecution in the chareidi sector may no longer lag behind that of any other group, and the judges made clear that the state must reach that point “as soon as possible.”
In place of the current system, the court ordered the government to design a comprehensive enforcement policy within 45 days. The plan, it ruled, must include a full array of complementary measures—especially economic ones—and these steps, when taken together, must be reasonably expected “to be effective and produce real change.” The justices also stressed that the government must heed the guidance of expert officials and cannot sidestep proposals that professional bodies deem essential.
The verdict includes a stern warning: any enforcement plan that allows “bypass funding channels” will be rejected as noncompliant. In the same vein, the court wrote that benefits “tied directly or indirectly to draft-evasion—such as benefits for yeshiva students whose yeshiva attendance indicates draft-evasion—must not continue.”
The petition that led to this dramatic ruling was submitted about eighteen months ago. It challenged the government’s failure to carry out an earlier High Court directive and argued that, without new legislation explicitly granting an exemption, the state “has no authority to refrain from enforcing punitive legal measures on draft-evaders.” The petitioners maintained that the state is obligated to enforce the law without hesitation.
The justices built their decision on four assertions. First, that the obligation of military service applies equally to all citizens, including the chareidi sector. Second, the already-deep inequality in the realm of conscription has intensified in the wake of the Israel-Hamas War. Third, that the IDF now faces an urgent manpower shortage—an estimated need for 12,000 soldiers, more than half for combat positions—which, in the court’s view, heightens the need to recruit chareidim. And fourth, that equalizing the draft is not just a military objective but “a national mission of the highest importance,” requiring full cooperation from all branches of government.
In reviewing the state’s conduct until now, the court’s assessment was scathing. It found that the government’s approach amounts to “a complete abandonment” of criminal enforcement against chareidi draft-evaders. According to the ruling, this neglect “violates the duty of state authorities to enforce the law, undermines the draft obligation, empties the law of substance, and constitutes selective enforcement.”
{Matzav.com}
