The Tel Aviv District Court has overturned a city resident’s convictions on 105 parking violations and canceled ₪100,000 in fines, ruling that the municipality failed to prove its case.
Judge Limor Bibi granted the appeal of Yosef Hakari, who had been convicted in two separate proceedings in magistrate’s court and fined ₪50,000 in each, plus court costs.
Tel Aviv municipal inspectors had issued Hakari dozens of tickets for parking nine vehicles with expired licenses on Vered and Yechiam streets in 2022 and 2023. The magistrate’s court found that the vehicles were registered in his name and imposed the fines after describing the proceedings as “exhausting.”
On appeal, Hakari’s lawyers argued that the city had failed to prove the elements of the offense, had not shown that the vehicles were parked on a public road, and had relied on computer printouts and inspectors’ testimony that did not meet the criminal standard of proof. The state called him a “serial litigant” who had filed hundreds of requests for trial, and said the inspectors had checked the information against Transportation Ministry records.
Bibi rejected Hakari’s argument that the streets did not qualify as a public road, but agreed with his main claim: the evidence was not good enough.
The state had not submitted the official certificates required from public employees, she ruled, and had not shown that the computer printouts it relied on met the legal standard for official records. Because the inspectors relied on data from an outside database, she said, the central element of the offense, that the vehicles’ licenses had expired, was never proven.
“The state did not present public employee certificates as required, and did not prove that the information from Transportation Ministry systems meets the admissibility conditions,” the ruling said.
With the convictions and sentences overturned, all of the fines were canceled. The decision joins a series of rulings on parking tickets and municipal enforcement, and is a reminder that even minor offenses must be proven to the criminal standard.
