Knesset Constitution Committee Debate: Regulatory Authority Law

During October 2021, the Knesset Constitution Committee held a series of discussions on the new Regulatory Authority Law and its implications. Our representatives presented Zulat’s position to the effect that the law must clearly stipulate that upon its establishment the Regulatory Authority would be required to take into account human rights aspects in all its actions.

Zulat’s Executive Director Einat Ovadia said on 12 October: “One of the problems with the proposed law is not only that it does not require coordination between the ministries, but that it contains blind spots given that the regulator of one ministry is oblivious of the impact on areas overseen by a fellow regulator when it comes to the violation of equality and human rights. For example, the Construction and Housing Ministry does not concern itself with workers’ rights. The Regulatory Authority has an advisory role to liaise between the regulators of different ministries.”

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Attorney Yifat Solel said on 9 October: “This law is very lacking in the social areas of human rights and equality. The Israeli Government has recognized the need to examine budgetary issues from a gender perspective, but such an examination is absent from this law. Not only the state budget, but regulation should also be examined this way. The law distinguishes between different population groups, between the center of the country and peripheral regions, between people of different ethnicities living in different places and in different types of communities. Matters of age, age-adjusted regulation, people with disabilities – all these things need to be explicitly written into the law. Is the right to privacy a key element of the law? The role of a regulatory entity should be to protect the full range of social interests.”

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Dr. Maha Sabbah Karkabi

 

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Tel Aviv University (2015), a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Gender Studies, SOAS, University of London (2015-2016), a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University (2016-2017), and a postdoctoral fellowship Ph.D. at the Humphrey Institute for Social Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2018-2020).
Dr. Maha Karbahi’s areas of interest focus on the connection between social change, family behavior, and gender inequality in societies in the process of change and specifically in Palestinian Arab society in Israel. Her research draws attention to the study of family life and employment, using a combined “ethnic lens” and “gender lens” and paying attention to the perspective of Palestinian Arab women, a group characterized by intersections between multiple marginal locations, which over the years has remained hidden from the research eye. Dr. Karkabi-Sabah’s research is published in professional journals and chapters in scientific books that are considered pioneers in family research, work, and gender equality.

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Prof. Frances Raday

Professor Emeritus in the Lieberman Chair in Labor Law, in the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University and serves as a full professor in the College of Management’s academic track, where she also serves as chair of the graduate program and as honorary president of the Concord Center for International Law Absorption. Radai was a member of a working group of the UN Human Rights Council on discrimination against women. In addition, she is a prominent and feminist human rights activist.

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Dr. Rawia Aburabia 

Faculty member of Sapir Academic College’s School of Law, received her PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research deals with the interface between law, gender, minorities, and human rights. Has published in leading journals on the subject of the matrimonial laws pertaining to Muslim women in Israel. Her book Under the Law, Outside Justice: Polygamy, Gendered Citizenship, and Colonialism in Israeli Law is expected to be published as part of the Gender Series of Kibbutz Meuhad Publishing House.

Dr. Aburabia has extensive experience in international human rights and public law. She has worked as a jurist for the Association for Civil Right and has been invited as a specialist to address such international forums as the United Nations and the European Parliament on the subject of indigenous communities and minority rights. She has interned with Human Rights Watch in Washington DC, and has been a member of the executive board of Amnesty International. In 2018, she was selected by the magazine Globes as one of the 40 most promising young persons in Israel under the age of 40.

 

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Ron Kessler

With over two decades of experience in the field of digital content, Ron has participated in numerous political and social campaigns. He helped run the digital activity of senior public officials, and worked in various NGOs. Ron is a fundamentally optimistic man, who believes that Israel can be changed and so can people. Lives in Tel Aviv.