The Emperor's New Clothes - part 3

In this part I will demonstrate what most of you probably aware of - How easy it is for authorities to trample and violate state laws without having any consequences.

Let me describe the frustrating process I had to endure in order to extract the information.

·         At the end of November 2020, a first letter of inquiry was sent to the Ministry of Health in which the Ministry was asked to provide information regarding the PCR tests.

·         After some time without a response, another request was sent signed by the a lawyer - on 6/12/20.

·         On 12/16/20 - a response was received from the Ministry of Health. The answer included several references to information on various websites, but did not contain any information relevant to the questions asked and the information required in the application.

·         On 10/1/21 - another appeal was sent to the Ministry of Health signed by about 160 people who joined the demand for details. In the appeal the missing information that the Ministry of Health is being asked to provide was emphasized.

·         After a week of no response - a formal information request was submitted through the Freedom of Information Law (date - 1/16/21).

It is important to understand that in Israel, when submitting a request for information from a government agency under the Freedom of Information law, the respondent is obligated to adhere to a schedule established by the law. The respondent must respond to the request within 30 days for positive or negative, if there is a justified reason not to respond, and if there is none, he must forward the information within 15 additional days, that is, within 45 days of submitting the request. In special cases, the respondent is allowed to request an extension of time and in this case the approval of the director general of the appropriate government office must also be obtained and in any case the maximum time for the answer shall not exceed 120 days.

As you will see immediately -

·         The Ministry of Health allowed itself to violate the freedom of information law twice!

·         The Ministry of Health took the time to provide an answer and responded only after more than a year from the date of the request!

·         On 3/25/21 - I submitted a complaint to the Ministry of Justice for not responding to the freedom of information request we submitted.

·         On 4/21/21 - a reply was received from the Ministry of Justice regarding the end of handling the complaint .

The answer received: We do not intend to handle your complaint since you asked for knowledge and not information.

What is the difference between knowledge and information?

·         It turns out that the wording style or the grammar used, may play into the hands of the authorities and allow them to avoid an answer on this basis, even though in terms of the requested content there is really no difference. This is one of the times when it seemed to me that I had reached a dead end. At this point I tried to use the movement for freedom of information but it didn't work. Although at first I was under the impression that the movement wanted to help me, but when I explained to them the nature of the information I wanted, something changed. I have a certain suspicion that when it became clear to them that the content of my request came to question the legitimacy of the PCR tests - they did a U-turn.

·         At this point I switched to work in a different mode - endless emails and phone calls. I sent emails to the addresses of the heads of the ministry and of the public inquiries in the Ministry of Health and I also got a phone number from one of the clerks in the public inquiries division and simply as a regular procedure every week I called her to apply pressure from below.

·         That clerk, who was extremely nice, already knew my voice from most of the times I called her and every time she did her best to try to help but to no avail. Finally, I was able to get the contact information of a senior manager in the public service department and after contacting her things started to move.

·         On 1/23/22 - the long-awaited answer was received (after about 13 months!!). To my disappointment, the answer included only partial answers to the information we requested.

In light of the lack of satisfaction in the answer and in light of the fact that a long period of time had passed in which I learned new details about the PCR tests as part of the independent research I had done, I realized on the spot that the journey was not over and I had to continue "milking" the Ministry of Health.

- On 9/2/22 a new letter was sent to the Ministry of Health with a repeated and new demand for the missing details as well as a request for additional information . In this framework, a new official request of the Freedom of Information Law was submitted.

Over a year has passed since the beginning of the affair and in the meantime the minister and CEO of the ministry have changed but the conduct of the ministry has not changed. In other words, this time too the Ministry of Health violated the freedom of information law and did not respond within 45 days. Moreover - the representative of the ministry asked me to give them more time and even though I gave my consent For an extension of 30 days - they also violated this agreement and did not answer. Again I reached a dead end!

I had two choices:

·         give up

or

·         File an administrative appeal to court - something I had no experience with and had no money for, since filing an appeal costs money in Israel and you may even find yourself paying court costs if the judge decides so.

I tried to interest several lawyers - without success. Fortunately, I made contact with a dear man named David Schuldman , who is a private man which devotes his private time to extract important information from the Ministry of Health - information that the Ministry makes an effort to hide.

Together with attorney Uri Xabi, they did everything they encouraged me to go through with the appeal and did what they could to guide and assist me . To finance the fees for the appeal I did a short and quick crowdfunding and within a few days I obtained the required amount and submitted the administrative petition.

·         The petition was submitted on 7/11/22. The judge scheduled a hearing on the appeal on 1/30/23.

·         The Ministry of Health at this stage was pushed against the wall and finally wa willing to produce the long-awaited answer which was received on the date - 1/18/23 - a week before the date set by the court and about 210 days later than the law allows!

So much for the turn of events and the war of attrition with the office. And what came out of all this? Well, now we are ready to dive into the rabbit hole.

On the next chapter we will deal with the actual information from the FOI request and why it should bother every thinking person.