Adv. Roy Bitton and Adv. Nofar Tal, members of the committee, said amending the Arrangements Law will seriously harm the public and will allow public bodies to get rich at the expense of consumers.
“The nice title should not mislead anyone,” said Bitton and Tal. “The proposed amendment to the Class Actions Law will seriously harm the public and has nothing to do with public interest.
“In fact, the government seeks to allow in law, a prohibited collection of funds from the public, while giving a reward to health funds, authorities and water corporations, which will continue to collect prohibited funds, even after a class action lawsuit has been filed against them and has been approved.
“This is money that belongs to the public, but above all, to each and every one of them who paid it.”
The lawyers said if the amendment enters into force, there is no point in filing class actions against an authority or a health fund for the simple reason: The filer will not receive any compensation.
Until today the situation was that the legislature allowed the authority to stop collecting fees within 90 days of its actions and thus did not have to return the dues legally, (for reasons and concerns that the public coffers will be emptied), to the extent that as long as it did not do so and continued with the proceeding and the class action was approved, the authority should return the public money it illegally collected.
The new proposed amendment means that the authority will earn more if they wait for a court ruling that states they have acted in violation of the law, according to Bitton and Tal.