B'Tselem welcomes the decision issued by the High Court of Justice this morning invalidating part of the amendment to the 'Intifada Law.' The amendment almost totally blocked Palestinians from suing for damages resulting, for example, from the state's negligence in military training areas, illegal gunfire, looting, and physical violence, abuse, and humiliation at checkpoints.
The amendment, which severely infringed the Palestinians' right to equality and human dignity, established the basis for denying compensation as the identity of the plaintiff and the plaintiff's place of residence, and not the cause of action on which the suit was based.
In the decision given this morning, Supreme Court President (Ret.) Aharon Barak wrote that the amendment 'denies liability in tort for any damage caused in a conflict area by security forces, even for acts that were not part of combat activity of the security forces. This expansion of the lack of state liability is unconstitutional. It does not adopt the lesser harm means, and involves the lack of liability for combat activity. It discharges the state from liability for civil wrongs that have nothing to do with a combat action, however broadly that term is defined. There is nothing in the regular actions of safeguarding the law carried out by security forces in territory under its control that justifies removing these actions from the normal tort laws. This is certainly true when the injurious act is not at all related to security activity. Only combat actions, as Amendment No. 7 seeks, justify removal of the arrangement from the domain of the normal tort laws.'
The decision was unanimous. The nine-justice panel held that Section 5C, added to the statute at the end of 2005 and which almost totally prevents Palestinians injured by actions of security forces in the Occupied Territories from suing for compensation, is illegal, and infringes a number of rights, among them to the rights to life, property, and liberty, and is invalid.
The judgment was handed down in a petition filed by nine human rights organizations: Adalah, HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, al-Haq, the Gaza Palestinian Center for Human Rights, B'Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, and Rabbis for Human Rights.