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Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952 (1952)

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aliasesEntry into Israel Law, Entry into Israel Law 5712 (1952)

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Summary

Israel’s Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952, passed by the Knesset on 26 August 1952 in the unofficial consolidation printed in this file: entry for anyone other than an Israel national is only by oleh’s visa or a visa under this Law, and residence for anyone other than a national or an oleh’s visa or certificate holder is only by a residence permit in four categories from transitory (up to 5 days) to permanent, all granted, extended, substituted, conditioned and cancellable at the Minister of the Interior’s discretion; Part Two channels all entry through prescribed frontier stations under frontier control officers with delay, detention and carrier-removal powers; Part Three makes unlawful entry or residence an offence punishable by one year’s imprisonment, gives the Minister a deportation power over a non-national, non-oleh who is in Israel without a permit, exempts diplomatic and service entrants, leaves a person who entered before the Law largely under the prior position, and in section 18(c) allows the Minister, on an application within two years, to grant a return visa to a person who was an inhabitant on 29 November 1947 of an area that became Israel territory and had left that area before that date, as printed; section 19 repeals the Immigration Ordinance, 1941 while preserving its rules, orders and grants as if made under this Law (Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952 (1952), PDF p.1-5).

What the file is

The English text of the Law in one 5-page file, about 1,984 words in the text copy: sections 1-19 on PDF p.1-5, followed on PDF p.5 by RefWorld bibliographic matter identifying this copy as an unofficial consolidation, Publisher “National Legislative Bodies”, Reference ISR-120, taken from the UNHCR RefWorld copy (accessed 23 May 2012). The Comments on PDF p.5 state the original Law was passed on 26 August 1952 and published in Sefer Ha-Chukkim No. 111 (5 September 1952), p. 354, that the last amendment included is the Entry into Israel (Amendment 4) 5745-1985, and that the Law was also amended in 1994, 1995 and 1996 without an available official translation of those amendments in this document. The file does not mark which sections any amendment changed, so it is a consolidation to 1985, not a certified 1952 text. Unlike the other files in this batch it is not identified as a Laws of the State of Israel volume text. The text copy was checked against the original at PDF p.1, 3 and 5; the original reads the same, including the printed points recorded in Section by section and Open questions. No Hebrew text, table or figure appears in the file.

Section by section

  • Section 1, General Provisions (PDF p.1). Entry into Israel of a person other than an Israel national shall be by oleh’s visa or by a visa under this Law. Residence in Israel of a person other than an Israel national or the holder of an oleh’s visa or oleh’s certificate shall be by permit of residence under this Law; the text copy and the original both print the oleh’s certificate phrase truncated, as “o oleh’ certificate”.
  • Section 2, Categories of visas and permits of residence (PDF p.1). The Minister of the Interior may grant a visa and transitory residence permit up to 5 days, a visa and visitor’s permit up to 3 months, a visa and temporary residence permit up to 3 years, or a visa and permanent residence permit. Transitory and visitor’s permits may be issued to a group jointly.
  • Section 3, Extension of visas and permits of residence (PDF p.1). Transitory extensions in aggregate not over ten days; visitor’s extensions in aggregate not over two years; temporary extensions, any one not over two years.
  • Section 4, Substitution of permits of residence (PDF p.1). The Minister may substitute a longer-term or permanent permit for a shorter-term permit.
  • Section 5, Return visas (PDF p.1-2). The Minister may grant a return visa to a person permitted to reside permanently who wishes to leave intending to return, or who is abroad and wishes to return.
  • Section 6, Prescribing of conditions (PDF p.2). The Minister may prescribe conditions for the grant of a visa and for the grant, extension or substitution of a permit, and may prescribe in a visa or permit conditions on which its validity depends.
  • Section 7, Frontier Stations (PDF p.2). No person, national or not, shall enter otherwise than at a frontier station prescribed by the Minister by order in Reshumot, after reporting to a frontier control officer and producing a valid passport or laissez-passer; the Minister may exempt a person for special circumstances.
  • Section 8, Frontier control (PDF p.2). A carrier’s master or person in charge shall deliver on demand a list of all persons aboard, including the personnel (printed “personel”), with prescribed particulars. A frontier control officer may enter and inspect any transport that has come to Israel, and everyone in it shall produce documents and give information relevant to implementation on demand.
  • Section 9, Verification of permission of entry (PDF p.2). A frontier control officer may delay entry until permission is ascertained, and may indicate a place where the person shall stay until ascertainment is complete or until departure.
  • Section 10, Removal of person who is not permitted to enter (PDF p.2). The Minister may remove a person found not permitted to enter; a frontier control officer may detain him, in such place and manner as the Minister prescribes, until departure or removal; the carrier shall on demand take him out of Israel.
  • Section 11, Cancellation of visas etc. (PDF p.3). The Minister may at his discretion cancel any visa under this Law, before or on arrival, and any residence permit. He may also, by reasoned decision, cancel an oleh’s visa or certificate granted under the “Law of the Return, 5710-1950” — as printed — if it was obtained by false information.
  • Section 12, Offences (PDF p.3). Entering or residing in contravention of the law, supplying false information to obtain a visa or permit for oneself or another, infringing visa or permit conditions, or contravening any other provision or regulations: “is liable to imprisonment for one year”.
  • Section 13, Deportation (PDF p.3). For a person other than an Israel national or an oleh under the Law of Return, the Minister may issue a deportation order if the person is in Israel without a residence permit. The person shall leave and shall not return so long as the order “has been cancelled”, as printed, with no “not” in the text copy or the original. A frontier control or police officer may arrest and detain him until departure or deportation. Deportation may be carried out at the person’s expense or at the expense of an employer who employed him without, or after expiry of, the Minister’s permit for that employment.
  • Section 14, Regulations (PDF p.3-4). The Minister may make regulations on any matter relating to implementation, including disqualified categories, prior conditions, medical examination, treatment and sanitary inspection of entrants and disinfection of their clothing and effects, and fees; an unnumbered closing sentence covers collecting deportation expenses charged to an employer under section 13(d).
  • Section 15, Implementation (PDF p.4). The Minister of the Interior is charged with implementation and may appoint frontier control officers, with notice in Reshumot.
  • Section 16, Delegation of powers (PDF p.4). The Minister may delegate all powers except making regulations, with notice in Reshumot; a person aggrieved by a delegated decision under section 11 or 13 may apply to the Minister for a final decision.
  • Section 17, Exemption (PDF p.4). The Law does not apply to entry on a diplomatic or service visa or residence with a valid foreign diplomatic or service passport; the Minister may exempt further categories of foreign representatives by order, in accordance with international conventions or agreements or recognised international procedure and on condition of reciprocity, and, after consulting the Home Affairs Committee of the Knesset, may exempt further categories of persons, “either completly or with restrictions” (as printed), from all or any provisions. A transit passenger arriving by ship or aircraft may be permitted to stay without a visa or permit until departure.
  • Section 18, Application and transitional provisions (PDF p.4-5). The Law applies to a person who enters after its coming into force and to his residence. For a person who entered before, the position is as if the Law had not been enacted, except that the Minister may grant him a permanent residence permit, on which the Law then applies to him. Section 18(c) provides the 29 November 1947 inhabitant return-visa route set out in the Summary and in Key passages, with its “prior to that date” wording as printed.
  • Section 19, Repeal and validation (PDF p.5). The Immigration Ordinance, 1941 is repealed; its Schedule’s Immigration Rules and all regulations, orders, notices, visas, permits and certificates under it have effect as if made, given or granted under this Law.
  • Closing RefWorld matter (PDF p.5). As recorded in What the file is: passage 26 August 1952, publication in Sefer Ha-Chukkim No. 111 (5 September 1952), p. 354; consolidation through Amendment 4 of 1985 (adopted 31 July 1985, published 7 August 1985); 1994, 1995 and 1996 amendments noted without translation; the note that in this document oleh and aliyah mean a Jew immigrating, and the immigration of a Jew, into the Land of Israel; and the disclaimer that this is not a UNHCR publication.

Key passages

  • “a visa and permit of temporary residence, up to 3 years” (section 2(a)(3), PDF p.1)
  • “is liable to imprisonment for one year” (section 12, PDF p.3)
  • “for permission to return to Israel, the Minister of the Interior may grant him a visa for that purpose” (section 18(c), PDF p.5)
  • “This is an unofficial consolidation” (Comments, PDF p.5)

Evidence the work relies on

A statute in an unofficial consolidation, not an evidentiary work. Its internal authorities are the enactments it works alongside or replaces: the Law of Return, 5710-1950, whose oleh’s visas and certificates sections 1, 11 and 13 presuppose, and the Immigration Ordinance, 1941, which section 19 repeals while preserving its subordinate rules and grants. The Comments cite the Law’s and its 1985 amendment’s Sefer Ha-Chukkim publication details; no Bill or Explanatory Note is cited in the file.

Analysis

Three points are in the text itself. First, the Law is built entirely around ministerial discretion: every category, extension, substitution, condition, cancellation and deportation is a “may” power of the Minister of the Interior, and section 14 adds a regulation power to disqualify whole categories, with no criteria for any of these decisions stated in the sections printed here. Second, nationals and olim stand outside the permit system the Law creates — entry and residence controls, the section 12 offence and the section 13 deportation power all apply by their terms to persons other than an Israel national or an oleh — while the one route addressed to the pre-State population, section 18(c), is itself only a ministerial “may”, is time-limited to applications within two years of the Law’s coming into force, and by its transitional companion section 18(b) leaves everyone who entered before the Law under the position as if the Law had not been enacted. Third, because this copy is a consolidation through the 1985 amendment with the changed sections unmarked, no section here can be attributed to 1952 rather than to a later amendment on this file alone. The file contains no statement of purpose, no debate and no commentary.

People, organizations, places and events

Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952, Law of Return, Citizenship Law (1952), Knesset, Israel

Concepts

Aliyah

How it relates to other sources

This is the primary text, in consolidation, of the entry law that earlier sources name only in its later, distinct form: Stateless Citizenship (2013) records a Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (2003), a temporary order denying Palestinian citizens residency or citizenship status for Palestinian spouses from the OPT (PDF p.83, footnote 32) — a different, later enactment that shares the entry-law frame this 1952 Law establishes, and the two are not conflated on Entry into Israel Law, 5712-1952. The Law interlocks with the two statutes ingested immediately before it: an oleh’s visa and certificate are creatures of the Law of Return (Law of Return 5710-1950, PDF p.1), and the “Israel national” who stands outside this Law’s entry and residence controls is the person made a national by the Nationality Law (Nationality Law, 5712-1952, PDF p.1-5). Its section 18(c) is new to the wiki as primary text: no earlier source page quotes a statutory return-visa route keyed to inhabitancy on 29 November 1947.

Open questions

  • This copy is an unofficial consolidation through the 1985 amendment, with the 1994, 1995 and 1996 amendments noted as untranslated and no section marked as amended, so the 1952 wording of any section cannot be separated from later wording on this file alone.
  • Section 18(c) as printed makes the return-visa route available to a person who was an inhabitant on 29 November 1947 and “left such area prior to that date”; the sequence as printed is recorded, not corrected, and whether the Hebrew original or the 1952 text reads differently is outside this file.
  • Section 13(b) as printed bars return “so long as the order of deportation has been cancelled”, with no “not”; section 1(b) prints the oleh’s certificate phrase truncated; section 11(b) prints “the Law of the Return”; and section 17(b) prints “completly” — all recorded as printed and checked against the original.
  • The file gives no coming-into-force section or date for the Law itself, only its passage and publication dates in the Comments; the two-year window in section 18(c) runs from a date this file does not state.

Coverage

PDF p.1-5 of 5, read in full.

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