On behalf of the respondent, an affidavit of the main witness was submitted by Mr. Roni Barak, Director of the Assessment Department in the offices of Respondent 1 (marked M/5) and an affidavit of the main witness of Mr. Oren Yaakov, Director of the Marketing and Tenders Division at the ILA (marked M/4).
- As stated above, the conduct of the appeals in this case was not a "type in roses", to say the least. As noted, the management of appeals encountered considerable difficulties in the appointment of members of the Appeals Committee.
It should be noted that in the hearing of the evidence in these appeals, the panelists of the committee at the time were present - Adv. Ahuva Simon and Mr. Avraham Shrem. The appointment of these committee members expired shortly after the conclusion of the hearing of the evidence, before the committee in its aforementioned composition was able to render a judgment on the appeals, and the appointment of these committee members was not extended by the Minister of Justice. A considerable period of time passed before other committee members were appointed. However, after the appointment of other committee members – Mr. Avi Kachon and Mr. Rafael Marciano, it turned out that Mr. Kachon was prevented from hearing the appeals due to his very close corporate relations and business ties with the owners of one of the entrepreneurial companies included in the procedural arrangement, the matter of which is decided according to the judgment in the appeals in this case, and he disqualified himself from the composition of the committee (see the minutes of the hearing of April 1, 2025).
Under these circumstances, another half of the year passed before eight additional committee members were appointed, with whom it was possible to hold a discussion of the completion of the argument before the new composition of the committee, which includes Mr. Raphael Marciano and Mr. Ilan Tamam. An oral argument supplementary hearing was held before the current composition of the committee on September 7, 2025.
- It should also be noted that during the prolonged period of rotation of the members of the Appeals Committee, on April 22, 2024, a request was filed by the appellant to add evidence, relating to the issue of the requests to amend the assessment. The appellant sought to attach as evidence two decisions issued by the respondent in January 2024 to Shmuel Baruch Development and Construction in a tax appeal (hereinafter – Shmuel Baruch Company), concerning assessment amendments made to this company, initiated by the respondent, according to Section 85(a)(3) of the Real Estate Taxation Law.
The appellant sought to prove, by means of the same additional evidence, that the respondent himself was carrying out assessment amendments initiated by him, on the grounds of a legal error under section 85(a)(3) of the Law, without giving him an explanation as to the reason for which he made the legal error. This is in contrast to the approach he takes towards the appellant in the appeals at hand, in connection with her requests to amend the assessment on the grounds of a legal error.