Citizen First: When the Courts Return to Serving the People Who Matter

There is a great deal of criticism aimed at the judicial system for how it treats and handles the ordinary citizen, and largely with good reason. The cumbersome and rigid procedures, the exhausting legal maneuvers, the overburdened or worn-out judges, the “broad” considerations and the “public interest,” the regulations, procedural rules and grand slogans often make those who need help from the justice system feel as if they are drowning in a sea of bureaucracy and interests dictated over their heads. But the case of passenger compensation in Operation “With the Lion” proved that sometimes it can be different.

Instead of “drying out” the ordinary citizen until those supposedly greater and more important than him move on up, things can simply be moved from below. Security, diplomatic and economic considerations are all important. But with all due respect, it does not really matter to the pocket of the ordinary citizen, who had to part with thousands of shekels because his flight was canceled and must still chase after them until who knows when. He, the last in the chain in the eyes of the State of Israel, should דווקא be first. The one everyone works for, not the other way around. “A guest for a moment sees every flaw,” the saying goes.

All that was needed this time was one young judge, appointed to the bench less than a year ago after experience in the private sector and in public roles, who ignored the background noise and did what should have been obvious: put the citizen at the center. Compensate him first, as the law currently states, and only then let the airlines, the government, the state and also the High Court of Justice if necessary continue their tug-of-war and macro-level considerations. After all, what do the ordinary citizens have to do with all the disputes between the Finance Ministry and the Transportation Ministry over who will fund and who will indemnify? What do they have to do with all the political considerations of one minister or another, or with the pressures of one vested interest or another? They are not the ones who should bear, again and again, on their frail shoulders and emptying pockets, the madness we live in, certainly not beyond what they are already required to bear.

Judge Iris Anavi Uzatzkir came and reminded us all, and no less her fellow judges in the higher courts who may still overturn her, what the purpose of democracy is: to take care of the citizen first, and only then the state.