The High Court declared the transfer of a billion shekels to ultra-Orthodox schools illegal

At the same time, the court did not oblige the schools to return most of the funds, citing the principle of a “fait accompli.”

Thus, de facto, we are talking about blocking approximately 100 million shekels that had not yet been transferred at the time the injunction was issued.

The fate of this money will be considered again by the Knesset Finance Committee next Tuesday.

Let us recall that during the trial it turned out that the Ministry of Finance actually received the approval of the Knesset Finance Committee retroactively, after the money had already been transferred.

The Ministry of Finance insisted that such a practice was generally accepted, but the judges did not agree with him, ruling that “the absolute illegality consists precisely in the transfer of funds before the commission’s decision.”

The office of the Knesset Legal Adviser Sagit Afik also qualified the incident as illegal actions of the government and the Ministry of Finance, noting that “this way of working is unacceptable” and that the fact of the transfer of funds before their approval was not reported to the deputies either during the appeal or during the commission meetings.

The court ordered the ministries of finance and education to provide commission members with a complete factual basis for each budget item: goals, justification, data on coverage of basic curricula, teacher training and calculation of their salaries.

The commission will also have to consider the issue of crediting funds due to schools that do not teach basic subjects.