Last update - 00:00 19/07/2007
Court nixes state request for 2nd hearing on school reinforcement
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Service
The deputy chief justice of the Supreme Court, Eliezer Rivlin, rejected on Thursday a state request to reopen hearings on a ruling that requires the state to reinforce classrooms in communities at risk of Qassam rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip.
The High Court ruled some six weeks ago that the state required to reinforce the classrooms by the start of the 2007-2008 school year.
In the ruling, the court determined that the state's decision to stop at "protected spaces" is not sufficient, after an experiment conducted in March found that only 43 percent of pupils managed to reach the protected spaces in the 15 seconds between alarm sirens and rocket strikes.
Justice Rivlin said on Thursday that there is no justifiable cause to heed the state's request to reopen the issue with a larger panel of justices.
However, Rivlin did not rule out the possibility that the High Court of Justice would concede to the state's demand to postpone the implementation of the ruling.
"If the state has a problem with timetables, it should have asked for a postponement on the ruling's implementation, and not for an additional hearing," Rivlin said.
According to estimations by the Prime Minister's Office, there is no way the state will be able to complete the reinforcements of schools by the start of the upcoming school year, and will work to do so by September 2008.