Military court justice Netanel Benisho ruled Tuesday against an administrative order issued to Tzvi Sukkot, one of five men who were ordered not to enter Judea and Samaria for several weeks due to police concerns that they could be involved in violence. Administrative orders can be issued directly by security forces without court approval.
Benisho criticized police suggested that law enforcement officers had preferred to use an administrative order rather than finding evidence to support their suspicions and obtain a court order. He criticized Sukkot as well, and told him not to interpret the court's verdict as support for his alleged nationalist violence.
The Honenu organization represented Sukkot, as it has represented other nationalist Jews arrested for fighting Arabs or border police. The group expressed satisfaction with Benisho's ruling, saying, “The judge decided to put an end to the Russian method of using administrative orders, which these days is used by the cruel Bolshevik regime.”
Administrative orders are used to say, “You are not accused of anything, but I hate you and I can punish you as I wish,” Honenu representatives said.
Earlier this week the Jerusalem Magistrates Court issued a second ruling rejecting a request to ban Hevron activist Noam Federman from his home. The State Prosecution asked to have Federman banned from all of Judea and Samaria after he was charged with attacking one of the officers who destroyed his family home in late October.
Justice Shulamit Dotan first heard the case, and criticized police for failing to give Federman a copy of the charges against him. Justice Moshe Drori, who heard a government appeal of the case, rejected the use of distancing orders altogether, asking why a person should be banned from an entire region of the country due to an alleged violent incident.
Three other men who several months ago were handed administrative orders have completed their time away from Judea and Samaria. Akiva HaCohen, David Libman and Meir Bretler will now be allowed to return home to their wives and children.
On Friday, another activist was served with a distancing order. Hevron resident Yaron Kilav, who lives in the Peace House, was told he could not enter Judea and Samaria for the next three months.
Critics slammed the move and said the frequency at which the orders were distributed to residents of Judea and Samaria proved discrimination against Jews in that region and violated a government resolution saying the orders could only be used in “exceptional situations in which there is a clear threat to national security.”