stone throwing
stone throwingTPS

The Supreme Court ruled that the amendment to the National Insurance Law, which allows for a sweeping denial of benefits to the parents of a minor serving a prison sentence for committing security offenses, unconstitutionally violates the right to equality.

However, the judges did not order the immediate repeal of the law and gave the Knesset a period of one year to address the flaws in the legislation, among other things, after the state made it clear that it is promoting amendments to the law.

Justices Esther Hayut, Hanan Melcer, Uzi Vogelman, Dafna Barak-Erez and Anat Baron were in the majority opinion who opposed the law and ruled that it should be amended. In the minority opinion were Justices Neal Hendel, Yitzhak Amit, Noam Sohlberg and David Mintz.

The amendment to the law passed in 2015 stipulates that in the event that a minor is convicted of a serious security offense, including a stone-throwing offense, committed out of nationalist motive or in connection with terrorist activity, and sentenced to imprisonment, his parents will be denied benefits paid for him for the entire period of his imprisonment.

The left-wing organization "Adalah" submitted the petition to the Supreme Court against the amendment to the law. The state explained in its response to the Supreme Court that "the parents' incentive is intended to prevent their children from committing such offenses ... A strict and special treatment of nationalist delinquency is not unique to the law before us, and is contained in many legal provisions."