Grunis orders Hebrew date on court documents
10/10/2012 03:10
Supreme Court president orders courts to includi the Hebrew calendar date alongside secular date on letters, summons.
Supreme Court President Asher Grunis Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Supreme Court President Asher D. Grunis has ordered all courts to begin
including the Hebrew calendar date along with the secular date on all letters
and summons issued by the court system, the Legal Forum for Israel announced
Tuesday.
The organization contacted Grunis recently to complain that
official court documents listed only the secular date – but not the Hebrew one,
as required by law.
According to the 1998 Law for Using the Hebrew Date,
all public institutions have been obligated for the past 14 years to include
both Hebrew and Gregorian dates in their official correspondence.
The
civil court system has been systematically ignoring this law and only the
rabbinic courts have complied with it, said the Forum in a press
release.
The organization’s attorney, Hila Cohen, had argued in a letter
to Grunis that there is nothing more “simple and obvious” in a Jewish state “in
which the law sets the Hebrew language as the official language” that “official
documents from the court system should note the Hebrew calendar date.”
In
a recent letter to the Forum, Barak Lazar, head legal adviser for the court
system, informed Cohen that Grunis had issued a directive throughout the court
system to conform with the 1998 law and ensure that the Hebrew date appeared on
all official documents.
Lazar qualified the enforcement of the 1998 law
only by noting that it would be implemented as quickly as technology would
allow.
Nahi Eyal, CEO of the Forum, said that noting the Hebrew calendar
date is an essential symbol for a Jewish state.
“I am happy that
President Grunis recognized the error and decided to rectify it as he understood
that the courts cannot violate the law.”
Eyal also said that observance
of the law throughout the country must start with the courts and that if the
courts ignore laws legislated by the Knesset, one cannot expect others to obey
the laws.
He concluded by commenting that fixing this issue by including
the Hebrew calendar date in court documents was a good way to start the new
Hebrew year of 5773.