## Facts

- State funds public cemetery establishment and maintenance, with administration largely carried out through religious bodies.
- Jewish cemeteries receive support through statutory Jewish religious councils; non-Jewish religious communities (Muslim, Christian, Druze) lack a parallel statutory framework.
- An NGO petitioned challenging the Ministry of Religious Affairs’ cemetery-maintenance budget allocations as discriminatory against Arab religious communities.
- The petition alleged that Arab citizens comprised about 20% of the population but received only a small fraction of cemetery-maintenance funding.
- The petition followed an earlier, broader budget challenge that was dismissed as too general; this petition targeted a specific budget line (cemeteries).
- The Supreme Court of Israel sat as the High Court of Justice to review the legality of the funding scheme under public law and Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.

## Issues

1. Whether allocating the bulk of state cemetery-maintenance funds to Jewish cemeteries, with only a small portion to non-Jewish cemeteries, violated the principle of equality (including as derived from Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty).
2. If equality was violated, whether relief should include retroactive payments from the prior budget year or be limited to prospective equalization.
3. To what extent the court may intervene in budget allocation decisions when a fundamental right (equality) is infringed.

## Decision

- The court held the cemetery-funding allocation method discriminatory and contrary to the principle of equality.
- The court ordered the Ministry of Religious Affairs to allocate cemetery funds for budget year 2000 among the various religions in an equal manner and to act on an equality basis going forward.
- The court denied retroactive relief from the 1999 budget.
- The court awarded the petitioner costs of 20,000 NIS.

## Legal Principles

- Government agencies allocating public funds must act consistently with the principle of equality; budgetary decisions are subject to administrative and constitutional review.
- Discriminatory allocation of public services on the basis of religion or nationality violates equality and may also violate human dignity under Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty.
- Judicial restraint in fiscal matters does not bar intervention where a budget scheme produces unlawful discrimination.
- Equality in allocating funds does not require a rigid population-percentage formula, but extreme disparities in a universal public service require a satisfactory, objective justification; absent such justification, the allocation is unlawful.
- Remedies may be prospective where retroactive budget adjustments are not justified in light of fiscal timing and institutional limits, provided forward-looking relief effectively cures the illegality.

## Conclusion

The court found unlawful discrimination in state cemetery-maintenance funding and required equal allocation for 2000 and beyond, while declining to reopen the prior year’s completed budget and limiting relief to prospective correction plus costs.


Adalah Legal Ctr. for Arab Minority Rights in Isr. v. Minister of Religious Affs. & Minister of Fin., HCJ 1113/99 (Isr. 2000)