Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the Palestinian Authority cannot require terror victims seeking compensation to prove a disability that has already been officially recognized, the prosecution announced Monday.
The court rejected two appeals filed by the PA - and upheld the attorney-general’s position - that an existing disability determination by the National Insurance Institute (NII) or by a court must be accepted in a subsequent compensation claim.
The ruling concerns a law that took effect in June 2024, which allows victims left with a permanent disability from a terrorist attack to seek fixed exemplary damages from the PA on the grounds that it provides payments to terrorists and their families.
The damages are intended not only to compensate victims, but also to punish and deter the PA.
In one of the cases, a victim of terrorism had been found by NII medical committees to suffer from a psychological disability. In the second, relatives of a person murdered in an attack had previously been recognized by a court as indirect victims in a civil lawsuit against the attackers.
Terror-related disabilities only need to be proven once
Lower courts rejected the PA’s attempts to reopen those findings. The PA then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that it should be allowed to submit evidence challenging the earlier disability determinations.
Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, joined by Justices Yael Willner and Gila Canfy-Steinitz, rejected that argument.
The court said the wording of the law was clear: Once a permanent disability has been established by the NII or in a separate civil case arising from the same attack, the victim does not need to prove it again.
The law does not include any provision allowing the PA to present evidence contradicting an existing disability finding, the court said. That omission was deliberate and reflected the law’s aim of providing terror victims with an efficient compensation process without repeated litigation.
The court also noted that the amount awarded under the law does not change according to the severity of the disability. The relevant question is simply whether the victim has a permanent disability or not.
Amit acknowledged that the law was highly unusual within Israeli civil law, but said its language was unambiguous and that lower courts had applied it correctly.