חוק הכניסה לישראל (תיקון מס' 22), התשע"א-2011Entry into Israel Law (Amendment No. 22), 2011 · automatic translation · suggest a correction

What the sponsors propose

The bill seeks to establish a "Tribunal for Foreigners," a quasi-judicial body that will conduct judicial review of authorities' decisions on matters of immigration, entry into and exit from Israel, and citizenship. According to the sponsors, the large number of petitions on population administration matters (2,159 petitions in 2008 alone) burdens the administrative courts and the State Attorney's Office, and therefore a unique, simple and swift tribunal, authorized to deviate from rules of procedure and evidence when necessary, would improve administrative decisions and save judicial time and resources. The sponsors further state that the proposed tribunal would replace the appeals committee for foreigners established by internal procedure of the Ministry of Interior at the end of 2008, and would anchor its role in legislation. The bill also includes provisions regarding appeals, rules of procedure, confidential information, further appeal, and the division of powers between the tribunal, the administrative court, and the detention review tribunal.

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An automatic summary of the explanatory notes written by the bill's sponsors. These are their arguments, not an official Knesset summary. · The bill on the Knesset website

What was said in the plenum

The law establishes a special administrative tribunal to hear appeals on decisions of the interior and justice authorities in matters of immigration, entry into Israel, residence, departure, and citizenship, instead of filing petitions directly with the administrative courts. The Knesset debate focused on whether establishing such a tribunal, appointed by representatives of the executive branch and operating under special rules of procedure (including the possibility of written proceedings, use of confidential information, and hearings without the appellant's presence), harms the separation of powers and the rights of those being judged, as against the need to address the heavy burden on the courts.

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An automatic summary of the plenum transcripts: the debate on the bill at every reading it was voted on. Arguments are given as the speakers made them; this is not an assessment. The list of speakers comes from the transcript, without a model. Transcripts of the sittings: 1, 2

Reservations to the second reading

20 reservations were filed: proposed changes to the text the committee brought to the second and third reading.

The reservations range from requests to completely delete most of the sections of the law establishing the appeals tribunal, through proposals to strengthen the appellant's rights (the right to an oral hearing, access to documents, limiting information privilege, expanding appeal rights), to government proposals for shortening timelines and wording amendments.

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By faction

• Ra'am–Ta'al opposition · 9 reservations · 4 members
• Hadash opposition · 8 reservations · 4 members
• Meretz opposition · 6 reservations · 2 members

A joint reservation counts for every faction whose members filed it. 2 proposers were not matched to a member: listed under the groups, not counted by faction.

Proposers and reservation numbers are extracted automatically from the committee version, and the count is checked against the numbers printed in it. The descriptions are an automatic summary. The reservation numbers in this document cannot be read as text, so the count was not checked against it automatically. Committee version for the second and third reading (PDF)