AG urges court to freeze law granting government control over police internal affairs

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said on Monday that the High Court of Justice should freeze the implementation of a controversial law passed by the coalition in June giving the justice minister control over the Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) until the court can make a final ruling on the measure.

In the attorney general’s response to High Court petitions against the law, she argued that the legislation politicizes law enforcement and would therefore severely and immediately endanger civil rights in the country. This justified an interim court order freezing implementation, and the ultimate annulment of the law as unconstitutional, Baharav-Miara asserted.

The law passed by the coalition had long been sought by advocates on the right who claimed there was a conflict of interest in DIPI being subordinate to the State Attorney’s Office, as it was prior to the new law, due to that agency’s close cooperation with the police.

Those critics, such as Likud MK and former DIPI deputy head Moshe Saada, who introduced the law, alleged that as a result, DIPI had an institutional bias against specific targets associated with the political right.

Critics of the bill, including professionals in the Justice Ministry, the legal adviser to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee — where the law was drawn up — and the opposition, all argued that the changes to DIPI’s structure, including the new authorities it grants the justice minister, will compromise the department’s independence, politicize it, and politicize criminal probes of the police.

It was also argued that the DIPI reform law was part of the government’s broader drive to assert control over levers of legal power in the country, and reduce checks on government authority.

The new law gives the justice minister control over the appointment of DIPI’s director, and creates the post of a new, politically appointed official within the department to arbitrate disputes over investigations between the agency and the State Attorney’s Office.

In her response to the court, Baharav-Miara argued the legislation will create a parallel prosecution service to that of the existing law enforcement agencies that will be politically dependent on the justice minister and wield heavy influence over police behavior, and therefore over Israeli citizens more broadly.

She further said that an interim order was also necessary due to what she claimed was the “expected irreversible damage” the law will have in the immediate term.

“The law creates a separate and highly powerful criminal investigation and prosecution unit, operating in parallel to the existing law enforcement system, without any professional oversight,” wrote the attorney general.

She said the provisions of the law make the DIPI director and the investigation disputes arbitrator dependent on their political masters, in particular through the manner in which the government controls their appointments, and the unit’s direct subordination to the justice minister and the director general of the ministry, a political appointee.

“The law is intended to realize the political objective of ‘investigating the investigators’ through the establishment of a new investigative and law enforcement body that in practice is subject to the authority of the government and has been granted unprecedented powers,” Baharav Miara added, saying that state prosecutors, Shin Bet officials, lawyers, and journalists could all be subject to the new department’s authority as well.

She added that the law’s provisions giving the justice minister the authority to determine DIPI’s budget and the “unprecedented power” granted to the Justice Ministry director general to initiate dismissal proceedings against the DIPI director and arbitrator further compromised the independence of the agency.