## Facts

- Israel generally requires compulsory military service under statute.
- For decades, ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) yeshiva students engaged in full-time religious study received administrative deferments from service.
- Public criticism grew that the deferments produced unequal burden-sharing between those who served and those who did not.
- A public committee recommended a statutory, time-limited framework intended to encourage gradual participation in military or civil service and entry into the workforce.
- In 2002, the Knesset enacted the Deferment of Service for Yeshiva Students for whom Torah is their Profession Law, 5762-2002 (“Tal Law”) as a trial arrangement.
- The Tal Law permitted annual service deferments for qualifying yeshiva students, created a “decision year” allowing temporary departure from study with options for shortened military or civil service, and left substantial implementation discretion to the Minister of Defense.
- Civil-society and individual petitioners filed petitions challenging the Tal Law as unconstitutional under Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty, asserting a violation of equality in distributing the military-service burden.
- The Supreme Court of Israel, sitting as the High Court of Justice, heard the matter en banc.

## Issues

1. Whether the Tal Law violates the constitutional value/right of equality as derived from Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty by creating systematic draft deferments for yeshiva students.
2. If equality is infringed, whether the infringement satisfies the Basic Law’s limitation clause (proper purpose and proportionality).
3. Whether the statute’s temporary and experimental design justified postponing a final constitutional ruling and leaving the arrangement in force for the trial period.

## Decision

- The Court dismissed the petitions and declined to invalidate the Tal Law at that stage.
- The Court held that equality is protected within Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty at least where unequal treatment is closely connected to human dignity.
- The Court found the Tal Law created a significant disparity in burden-sharing that raised serious constitutional difficulty.
- The Court nevertheless treated the challenge as premature because the scheme was temporary, experimental, and not yet supported by a sufficient record demonstrating its practical effects.
- The Court warned that if the arrangement did not produce measurable movement toward greater equality, future petitions would require renewed constitutional scrutiny and possible invalidation.

## Legal Principles

- Equality is constitutionally protected through Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty insofar as discrimination materially harms human dignity.
- The Court has authority to review Knesset legislation for compliance with the Basic Laws and applies the limitation clause through proportionality analysis (proper purpose, rational connection, less restrictive means, and overall balance).
- Constitutional challenges to draft and burden-sharing arrangements are justiciable; they are not barred as purely political questions.
- For temporary or experimental legislation addressing entrenched social conflicts, the Court may allow a limited period of legislative experimentation while signaling constitutional limits and reserving the power to strike down the law if results fail to justify continuing rights infringements.

## Conclusion

The Court upheld the Tal Law during its trial period while affirming that equality, as linked to human dignity, constrains statutory draft-deferment schemes; it deferred final invalidation pending real-world results and placed the Knesset on notice that persistent inequality would not be constitutionally sustainable.


Movement for Quality Government in Israel v. Knesset, HCJ 6427/02, 61(1) PD 619 (Isr. 2006)