Last update - 00:00 12/02/2007
High Court: State must supply all jailed prisoners with beds
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The High Court of Justice ruled Monday that as of July 1, the state will be required to supply a bed to each and every prisoner in the jail system.
The ruling was based on a petition submitted by Physicians for Human Rights and the Association for Civil Rights, which claimed that prisoners - many of whom sleep on mattresses on prison floors - should receive the same treatment afforded to detainees, who are legally entitled to beds.
Justices Ayala Procaccia, Salim Jubran, and David Cheshin approved the petition and stated that "starting on the day of July 1 the state will fully implement the principle according to which it will supply a bed to each prisoner held in Israel's jails. This obligation will be present at all times and deviation from it will be allowed only in rare and irregular."
They added that the obligation "must live up to the standards of Basic Law of Human Dignity and Liberty in any situation according to its circumstances."
Justice Procaccia stated that "a person's right to sleep on a bed is a basic condition to a minimal existence, and any breach of it constitutes a breach of the human right to dignity."
Attorney Dori Spivak, who represented the petitioning parties, said in response to the ruling, "In 1979, Justice Haim Cohen ruled in a minority-held opinion that a bed is a minimal requirement derived from the right to dignity. 28 years were needed for the minority opinion of a human rights hero to become common law."