Complaint Filed After District Judge Signed Ruling During Shabbat

The group Emet LeYaakov in Israel has filed a formal complaint to Israel’s Ombudsman for Judges against Lod District Court Judge Michael Kreshen, after he signed a judicial ruling during Shabbat. The decision was issued in an administrative petition concerning the Elad municipality, about an hour and a half before Shabbat ended on Saturday, the 7th of Sivan.

The petition was filed by Elad city council member Yitzhak Chala against the municipality, alleging a lack of transparency and failures in proper administration. The complainant argues that this was a standard administrative proceeding, with no issue of life-saving urgency and no risk of irreversible harm, so the legal conditions for court activity on a day of rest were not met.

In the complaint, Emet LeYaakov cites Regulation 2(a) of the Emergency Relief Regulations, which permits court activity on days of rest only in urgent cases involving danger to life or to prevent serious, irreparable damage. The organization also says that when a court acts exceptionally on Shabbat, it must explain the circumstances in the ruling itself, and no such explanation appeared here.

The judiciary responded that this was a “technical decision in the case” and that it may have been issued close to Shabbat’s end out of inattentiveness. Emet LeYaakov rejected that explanation, saying a district judge must be careful about Shabbat observance. The group also pointed to a recent broader ruling by the Ombudsman for Judges stating that unnecessary Shabbat decisions, without explaining urgency, are a defect in the conduct of justice. It has asked the ombudsman to seek Judge Kreshen’s response, examine the circumstances, and issue system-wide guidance on the narrow limits for rulings on rest days.