Following Adalah's Petition and Motion for Contempt of Court to Supreme Court: Planning Authorities Submit Plan for Unrecognized Neighborhood of Al-Jelasi
On 9 December 2005 – over four years after the Supreme Court of Israel issued an order in this regard – the planning authorities submitted a master plan for the village of Kammaneh, located in the Galilee. The plan incorporates the neighborhood of Al-Jelasi, and thereby affords it official recognition. The plan was submitted just a few days before a hearing which was scheduled to be held before the Supreme Court on a motion for contempt of court filed by Adalah in May 2005. On 19 December 2005 following the submission of the plan, the Court ordered the state to pay legal expenses in the sum of NIS 10,000.
Adalah Attorney Suhad Bishara filed the motion for contempt of court on behalf of residents from the neighborhood of Al-Jelasi. In the motion, Adalah demanded that the Court compel the Misgav Regional Council, the Local Planning and Building Committee of Misgav, the Northern District Planning and Building Committee, the National Council for Planning and Building and the Ministry of the Interior to implement the Supreme Court's decision in H.C. 7960/99, Hashem Sawa'ed, et. al. v. Misgav Regional Council, et. al. The petition, which was submitted to the Supreme Court by former Adalah Attorney Jamil Dakwar in November 1999, sought official recognition for the neighborhood. The respondents had failed to implement the Court's decision on the petition for more than four years (52 months).
The Arab village of Kammaneh is situated on Mt. Kamoun in the western Galilee region of the north of Israel. The neighborhood of Al-Jelasi is located in the north-eastern side of the village, and is currently home to some 150 residents. Following a governmental decision to grant formal recognition to the village of Kammaneh in 1995, two master plans (Tamam 14/2 – Kammaneh and Local Master Plan T/9378 – Kammaneh) were prepared for the village. However, the neighborhood of Al-Jelasi was not included within the jurisdictional boundaries drawn up by these master plans. In the original petition to the Supreme Court, Adalah,and the inhabitants of Al-Jelasi argued that the exclusion of their neighborhood from the boundaries of the master plans severely violated their rights to equality and dignity, as well as their rights to property and housing.
The Supreme Court accepted the petition, and in its decision of 5 September 2001 ordered the District Planning Committee to submit an expansion plan for the master plans within 18 months. In addition, in order to prevent the further deterioration of the situation of the inhabitants of the neighborhood, the Court forbade the demolition of homes and other buildings constructed in the neighborhood prior to the issuance of the original master plans. The planning authorities, however, failed to fulfill their obligations, neither submitting nor approving any plan to include Al-Jelasi neighborhood within the boundaries of Kammaneh village.
In the motion for contempt, residents of Al-Jelasi argued that the different protocols and decisions taken in the planning committee meetings indicate that the planning committees are dragging the process out intentionally. In addition to failing to implement their own decisions, these committees are disregarding the Court's decision, demonstrating contempt for the Court and have proven unwilling to find a proper solution for Al-Jelasi neighborhood, as the Court's decision obliges them to do.
Additionally, the neighborhood's inhabitants argued that the non-fulfillment of the Court's decision continues to be a severe violation of their rights to dignity, property and adequate housing, since the failure to formalize the status of the neighborhood prevents the neighborhood's inhabitants from being provided with infrastructure, basic services, or adequate living conditions, and therefore from developing their neighborhood.
H.C. 7960/99, Hashem Sawa'ed, et. al. v. Regional Council of Misgav, et. al. (Decision delivered 5 September 2001).
