See, for example only, Opening Motion (Tel Aviv) 4797-05-17 Maccabi Dalit Alcarmel Football Club v. Israel Football Association [published on the Nevo website] (May 4, 2017):
"The decisions of the Supreme Court in matters of discipline are final and cannot be appealed by the general courts. The intervention of this court will be sparingly and in exceptional cases, where serious defects are found in the proper conduct of the proceedings, such as, for example, deviation from authority or violation of the rules of natural justice."
See also recently Civil Case (Tel Aviv) 34297-07-23 Association for the Advancement of the Dimona Sports Club and the Advancement of Youth v. Israel Football Association [published on the Nevo website] (August 7, 2023) and references therein:
"As is well known, this provision of the law has been interpreted more than once in case law in a manner that recognizes the intervention of this court in the decisions of the Association's internal judicial institutions, however, this intervention will be sparingly and in exceptional cases, where serious flaws will be found in the proper conduct of the proceedings, such as, for example, deviation from authority or violation of the rules of natural justice (see and compare: Opening Stimulus (Tel Aviv District) 661/03 Hapoel Kfar Saba Sports Association (R.A.) v. Israel Football Association [published in Nevo] (April 14, 2005), at p. 16; Opening Motion (Tel Aviv District) 37631-08-16 Ashdod Association A Cricket Club v. Israel Cricket Association et al. [published in Nevo] (September 9, 2017), para. 6; Opening Motion (Tel Aviv District) 4797-05-17 Maccabi Dalit ElCarmel v. Football in Israel et al. [published in Nevo] (May 4, 2017); Opening Motion (Tel Aviv District) 65322-11-17 Eliniv Barda v. Supreme Court of the Israel Football Association [published in Nevo] (January 10, 2018), at p. 51, as well as a decision in the matter of Ironi Modiin."
- This is also the principle law regarding intervention in the judicial tribunals of other institutions, see Civil Appeal 7162/06 Stern v. Egged Cooperative Association for Transportation in Israel in a Tax Appeal [published in Nevo] (February 17, 2008):
"It can be summarized and said that according to the traditional approach, the court will not intervene in the decisions of internal tribunals of voluntary organizations, except in exceptional cases. The typical cases in which the court will intervene will be a deviation from its authority and a violation of the rules of natural justice. Additional exceptional cases cannot be defined in advance, and they will be determined from case to case. At the same time, it is clear that the rule is non-intervention, while intervention is the exception."
- In fact, a review of the statement of claim shows that Hapoel Be'er Sheva does not dispute these rules of intervention in practice, with its claims focusing on lack of authority, violation of the rules of natural justice, and extreme unreasonableness.
- Against the background of these rules of intervention, I will examine the claims of Hapoel Be'er Sheva.
Was the judgment given without authority in light of a deviation from the judge's report?
- Hapoel Be'er Sheva's main argument in its lawsuit is a relatively simple one, which is that the Association's judicial institutions, and in particular the Supreme Court, exceeded their authority by determining that Hapoel Be'er Sheva was responsible for not holding the game, contrary to or in deviation from what was determined in the referee's report.
In order for me to accept this claim, Hapoel Be'er Sheva must pass two hurdles. The first, on the normative level, is to show that the judicial institutions must not deviate from the judge's report. The second, on the factual level, is to show that the refereeing institutions did indeed deviate from the referee's report, that is, the referee's report determines that Hapoel Be'er Sheva is not responsible for the failure to hold the game, contrary to the determination of the refereeing institutions.