Court rejects Sara Netanyahu appeal against ex-employees
The High Court of Justice on Tuesday rejected Sara Netanyahu’s appeal of civil judgments against her and in favor of two former employees of the Prime Minister’s Residence.
A three-justice panel said that other than being the prime minister’s wife, her case presented no novel issues of law that could justify her having a right to appeal when technically the monetary damages were against the Prime Minister’s Office – even if publicly the judgments were interpreted as being against her.
In October, the National Labor Court issued a similar ruling upholding judgments by the Jerusalem Labor Court in favor of Meni Naftali and Guy Eliyahu.
In May 2016, Judge Dita Prugnin slammed Sara Netanyahu’s conduct toward Eliyahu and other employees as “insufferable, humiliating and rising to the level of abusive.”
The Netanyahus’ family lawyer, Yossi Cohen, responded at the time that “the real abusive conduct was of Judge Prugnin, who... again ignored... the testimony of Mrs. Netanyahu.”
Despite his attack on Prugnin, the National Labor Court and High Court took the judge’s side.
Lawyer Naomi Landau, who represented Eliyahu, stated in May 2016: “Guy Eliyahu and Meni Naftali are heroes. They stood with courage against powerful evil forces who tried to destroy them... I have never encountered such an evil employer.”
In September 2015, Eliyahu’s lawsuit came under review, focusing on his allegations of being abused, underpaid and overworked.
Eliyahu claimed that Netanyahu asked him “to bring her food, and when I would return with the requested food she would accuse me of trying to make her fat.”
He testified in September 2015 that on one occasion, he was called back to the residence after he had already gone home. It was after midnight and he came back “just... to heat up a bowl of soup for Mrs. Netanyahu.” He also said that upon returning to the residence he was reprimanded by Netanyahu and told that he must come back to the residence no matter the hour if she wanted food.