Court Orders Government to Reallocate $65 Million to Rehabilitating the Environment

October 13, 2009

Israel’s High Court of Justice has ordered the government to return $65 million to a fund, which was originally set up to rehabilitate landscapes scarred by quarries. The order followed a petition by the Israel Union for Environmental Defense (IUED), which NIF supports through the Green Environment Fund.

In 1959, the government began charging quarry owners a special tax. The monies collected were placed into a fund designated to repair the damage and the pollution caused and to repair the landscape after a quarry was abandoned. However, in the recession of 2002, the Ministries of Finance and National Infrastructures decided to transfer the funds into the general budget.

Funds will now be available to rehabilitate this hillside

In 2003 IUED petitioned the High Court of Justice and was granted an immediate injunction freezing the funds and forbidding the government to use them for other purposes. Earlier this month, the court ordered the government to use the money, now amounting to $65 million, only for their originally designated use.

IUED’s Executive Director Tzipi Iser Itzik said, “We look forward to the launching of an intensive program of remediation. The Quarries Rehabilitation Fund will now be used for its proper legal purpose: the remediation of our national landscape as a legacy for future generations.”