AG decries ‘attack’ on police and judiciary by lawmakers

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit takes aim at recent legislative initiatives that are apparently designed to hinder investigations of public officials, calling them an “attack on both the “independence” of the law enforcement system and the public’s trust in that system.

He also attacks a bill that would allow the Knesset to relegislate any law struck down by the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds.

“Attempts to weaken the Supreme Court and the law enforcement bodies will lead to a general weakening of the rule of law in the country, including a weakening of Israel’s defenses in the international arena,” Mandelblit says at a conference of the Israel Bar Association in Eilat.

His comments come a day after a Likud lawmaker proposed limiting the ability of the media and the public to scrutinize the behavior of public figures.

Miki Zohar’s bill seeks to prohibit the media from reporting on the opening of police investigations into public figures, unless they have special permission, Hadashot TV news reported Sunday.

Furthermore, he has suggested limiting the authority of police to open a probe into a public figure unless they already have a solid evidentiary basis for doing so, the report said.

Zohar claimed that the proposed legislation was aimed at protecting MKs who were critical of the police from the police taking revenge.

It was one of a series of proposals that critics say aim to shield Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other right-wing politicians from corruption investigations.