Supreme Court on mehadrin bus lines

I just found the court declaration regarding the hearing that took place against the Mehadrin bus service provided by Egged.

If you want to see the original, and you can make your way through the Hebrew, you can see it here..

I will summarize what it says for those of you who can't make it through the Hebrew...

It goes through the claims and the responses. The Court then proceeds with a list of questions and what needs to be done for the further processing of the hearing:

1. The court sees nothing wrong with the concept itself of a mehadrin bus for the Haredi community. The court understands that this was not a point of contention. Because the arrangements were not organized in a normative fashion, it created a number of problems. The courts will define a normative practice, because there has been lack of one, such as where such lines should be created, alternate forms of transportation for people who do not want to travel on a mehadrin line, proper signage on the outside of the bus so people will know it is defined as a mehadrin bus and proper signage within the bus with instructions for appropriate behavior and the voluntary nature of the arrangement, involvement of the driver in enforcement of the rules - when he will or will not get involved in disputes among the passengers, issues of pricing, a form of supervision and method of dealing with complaints, Rabbinic position (from the Haredi community) on the appropriate behavior, and more.

2. It reviews when some of the legal history of the issue and says the initial allowance for to include proper signage, no involvement by the driver, totally voluntary arrangement by the passengers, and that it would be a "test" situation.

3. A lot has happened since the first line went into effect in 1999 and now there are 30 lines that run by mehadrin guidelines, 23 inter-city and 7 local lines. They are not in accordance with the guidelines of the Langental Committee recommendations, in the sense of appropriate attire, no mention of the voluntary aspect of the arrangement, no signs or clarity on appropriate behavior or other, the involvement of the driver is cloudy and unclear, no supervision.

4. Nothing has been reported by the Ministry of Transportation about the Langental Com. recommendations.

5. In order to allow the functioning of the lines in a way that will not harm anybody in any way a new forum should be created that will review the situation and the events that have taken place and will make recommendations regarding these issues.

6. The MOT needs to create such a forum ASAP to allow the proper functioning. We raised this before the attorney of the state and he did not reject it.

7. We request a response from the state within 30 days regarding the creation of such a forum. Those petitioning the issue will then have a further 21 days to respond. The decision will be made then.