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U.S. court invalidates passport law on status of Jerusalem – signed by Bush in 2002
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A federal appeals court invalidated a U.S. law that was designed to allow American citizens born in Jerusalem to have Israel listed as their birthplace on passports.
The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upholds a long-standing U.S. foreign policy that the president – and not lawmakers – have sole authority to say who controls the historic holy city claimed by Israelis and Palestinians.
In the U.S. government, the president “exclusively holds the power to determine whether to recognize a foreign sovereign,” wrote Judge Karen Henderson for the panel.
Since the founding of Israel in 1948, U.S. presidents have declined to state a position on the status of Jerusalem, leaving it as one of the thorniest issues to be resolved in possible future peace talks.
The State Department, which issues passports and reports to the president, has declined to enforce the law passed by Congress in 2002, saying it violated the separation of executive and legislative powers laid out in the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Supreme Court Orders Trial in Case of ‘Israel’ on Passport
(Bloomberg) March 26, 2012 – The U.S. Supreme Court said a lower court should consider a suit filed under a law that lets Americans born in Jerusalem designate Israel as their place of birth on their passport.
A trial judge and a federal appeals court barred a hearing in the case, ruling that questions about Jerusalem’s status are political issues that can’t properly be reviewed by the courts. In an 8-1 decision today, the high court said the lawsuit should go forward. Justice Stephen Breyer dissented.
The ruling is a victory for the parents of 9-year-old Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky [supported by the Israel lobby in the US]. They sued in 2003 to have Israel listed on the boy’s passport, pointing to a 2002 law giving Jerusalem-born passport holders or their parents the option of using Israel as the designation. [Foreign Relations Authorization Act for 2003]
The Obama administration contended that Congress was infringing on the president’s exclusive power to recognize foreign sovereigns and determine their territorial boundaries. The State Department has a policy of not taking a position on the political status of Jerusalem.
The Zivotofsky family’s lawyers argued that any presidential interest in the place-of-birth designation was too trivial to warrant overturning an act of Congress. Thirty-nine members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, filed a brief urging the court to uphold the law.
Oral arguments and decision Zivotofsky v. Clinton (10-699)
