Tel Aviv – High Court Hears Dispute Over Supermarkets Remaining Open On Shabbat

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    Tiv Taam, Israel’s largest food groupTel Aviv – The High Court of Justice on Monday ordered Interior Minister Silvan Shalom and the Tel Aviv Municipality to iron out differences within 90 days over a proposed new amendment to a law dealing with whether food stores can be open on Shabbat in Tel Aviv and whether they can be fined for being open.

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    The hearing came following a petition by a group of small and independent store chains to block the new amendment from going into effect.

    The terms of the new amendment and the dispute between the Interior Ministry and the municipality were unclear from the hearing with much of the oral arguments revolving around accusations of which side had failed to answer questions from the other side or delayed the process.

    Part of the delay likely also relates to the fact that the post of interior minister has been filled by three different persons over the last year, with Shalom only taking over the reins since the new government was sworn in.

    Supreme Court President Miriam Naor said she wanted to send an “unequivocal message” to the parties that the issue cannot be indefinitely delayed.

    In November 2014, Tel Aviv Municipal Court Judge Aviyam Barkai issued an order permitting supermarkets to remain open on Shabbat.

    The ruling was a highly technical one, due to the confusing procedural context in which Barkai denied the Tel Aviv Municipality’s requests to enforce its orders to close stores that were open on Shabbat even though it had previously passed an amendment to a local law that permits stores to remain open on the Jewish day of rest.

    Former interior minister Gideon Sa’ar, the ultimate authority over municipal matters, refused in June 2014 to approve the old amendment, leaving the municipality with no choice but to penalize stores that operated on Shabbat and to request court approval to close them.

    The court not only refused to so, but it also nullified Sa’ar’s decision, appearing to remove any further moves against the stores.

    Sa’ar was supposed to address the old amendment within 60 days, Barkai said, but merely refused to approve it instead of formally rejecting it, as required in a case of non-approval.

    The ruling also declared that former interior minister Gilad Erdan will not have the right to hold up the old amendment’s publication and its going into full effect.

    Barkai said he understood that his decision impacted Tel Aviv’s character and the rest of the country in terms of the value it placed on Shabbat and the balance between religion and state.

    Prior to the amendment, the High Court of Justice had ruled in 2013 that, because of the old law that stores cannot open on Shabbat, the municipality needed to enforce the closing of the large, popular supermarket chains Tiv Ta’am and AM:PM on Saturdays, noting that the fine of NIS 660 per week imposed on the businesses does not achieve the objective.

    Secular owners of small grocery stores had requested the law to close stores on Shabbat to be enforced, saying they lost customers to the large chains, and were entitled to a day of rest observed by all without losing business.

    In 2013, the High Court of Justice suggested that the municipality should pass a law permitting stores to remain open on Shabbat.‎


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