The municipality of Betar Illit, Mayor Meir Rubinstein and the municipality spokesman will compensate a resident after the municipality refused to allow him to publish ads critical of the mayor on the city’s bulletin boards.

The Administrative Court of Maale Adumim ruled that the municipality of Betar Illit and is spokesperson will pay NIS 10,752 to city resident Eli Zalmanovich.

The criticism of the ads was directed at Rubinstein’s discriminatory policy towards the children of special education in the city. The difficulties experienced by special education institutions in the city were attributed to Rubinstein, and some residents fought against him.

A local franchisee for posting advertisements on the billboards then refused to paste their ads onto the bulletin boards, claiming that the municipality and a spokesperson did not approve them.

Only when the parties reached a preliminary hearing in the petition did the city spokesperson announce that it agreed to remove its objection to the ad placement, and therefore they were pasted more than six months later than the requested date.

Attorney Itamar Ben-Givir, who represented petitioner Eli Zalmanovich, argued against the municipality that it is impossible for a citizen to have to go to court – in order to “paste a legal notice in billboards in the State of Israel.”

According to him, the franchisee and the municipality had no authority to prevent the ads from being posted, or to set a policy of having to approve an ad – exactly as would have happened if it were a greeting card to the mayor.

Attorney Ben-Givir even demanded that the municipality pay significant expenses in order to pass on a message to the municipality that would prevent similar events from recurring in the future.

Judge Amir Dahan stated in his decision: “The court was impressed that unfortunately the petition was not in vain … There is no room to accept the position of the municipality spokesman, whose place will not be recognized in a city that is supposed to have faith in principles of freedom of expression and expression of one’s opinion.

“In balancing the considerations, the petition was in its place, and if the respondents expressed opposition and did not comply with the instructions of the court in connection with posting the notice – the petition would be accepted in the sense that an order was issued.”

The court ruled that the municipality and the municipality spokesman must pay the petitioner NIS 7,500 plus VAT, as well as a refund of the court fee of NIS 1,977.

Eli Zalmanovich responded to the ruling: “The Betar Illit municipality is learning the limitations of power the hard way, and the city is not the private domain of the mayor and the municipality spokesman, and they do not own it.

“The children of special education suffer from the mayor’s discriminatory policy toward them, and in fact the municipality wanted to prevent them from having their cries heard. Every resident of Betar knows that he was given the legal ability to publicly criticize the mayor and his policies, including on municipal bulletin boards,” Zalmanovich said.

Kikar Shabbos News adds that it contacted Betar Illit City Hall for a response, but none was forthcoming.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)