Counsel for the appellants further argued that the bylaw does not meet the conditions of the "limitation clause" in the Basic Law, and that the bylaw is incompatible with the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, since the ways of the religion of Israel are pleasant and all its paths are peace, and coercion is not the way of Judaism, and therefore religious commandments cannot be imposed on the entire population, and especially on people who do not agree to this.
In addition, counsel for the appellants argues that the bylaw violates the appellants' freedom of occupation to a greater extent than is necessary, since it is a sweeping and total prohibition, which applies to the entire city of Ashkelon and not to certain neighborhoods and areas.
- The History of Legislation and the Development of Case Law Regarding Pig Breeding, Keeping and Selling Meat
(a) By virtue of the authority granted to municipalities in the Mandatory Municipalities Ordinance, various municipalities, during the Mandate and in the first years after Israel's independence, enacted bylaws aimed at preventing the breeding, marketing, and sale of pigs within their municipal boundaries.
In 1955, a petition was heard before the Supreme Court in which it was claimed that the Tel Aviv Bylaw (Pigs and Pork), 5715-1954, was non-binding due to lack of any legal validity: High Court of Justice 72/55, 117 Friday et al. v. Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa et al. (hereinafter – the High Court of Justice Friday [2]).
The Supreme Court ruled that the municipality's authority to enact the aforementioned bylaw stems from section 99(1) of the Municipalities Ordinance.
After a comprehensive analysis of the provisions of the law and previous rulings, the Supreme Court reached the conclusion that:
"What follows from all of the above is that a body that has the power of sub-legislation of a local nature should not be allowed to regulate religious problems under the guise of regulating the sale of meat in a particular place. It is the Knesset, not the municipality, to regulate religious matters. Therefore, we make the decisive nisi orders" (at p. 752).