AG urges High Court to freeze implementation of controversial internal police investigations law

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara says that the High Court of Justice should freeze implementation of a controversial law, passed by the coalition in June, giving the justice minister control over the Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI), which is in charge of probing suspected cases of police wrongdoing.

In the attorney general’s response to High Court petitions against the law, she argues that 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 have heavy influence over police behavior, and therefore over Israeli citizens more broadly.

She adds that an interim order is necessary also due to what she claims is 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,” writes Baharav-Miara.

She says the provisions of the law make two key figures in the revamped DIPI dependent on politicians, in particular the manner in which the government controls their appointment 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 adds, saying that state prosecutors, Shin Bet officials, lawyers and journalists could all be subject to the new department’s authority as well.