AG: New appointments affecting agency probing cops too politicized, could hurt election integrity

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara says in a Supreme Court filing that Justice Ministry Director-General Itamar Donenfeld inappropriately pushed through an appointment to the committee that will select the leadership of the Department of Internal Police Investigations, politicizing it.

The DIPI is a Justice Ministry department that investigates police.

Baharav-Miara calls on the court to halt appointments to the committee and to the DIPI’s top jobs, citing concern that an unduly politicized DIPI could “instill fear in officers, investigators, prosecutors and journalists” and “harm law enforcement’s ability to perform its duty to ensure the integrity of the coming election,” on October 27.

The Knesset in June passed an amendment that would move the DIPI from the State Attorney’s Office to the direct control of the justice minister. Baharav-Miara, who has criticized the legislation, filed the brief to the court as part of petitions against the measure.

The amendment empowers a five-member committee to appoint the two top officers of the new DIPI, the majority of which would be controlled or influenced by the justice minister or the ministry’s director-general.

The committee members, according to the amendment, are the Justice Ministry director-general; the civil service commissioner; a criminal defense attorney chosen by the justice minister in consultation with the Public Defender’s Office; a person with experience in interrogations or criminal prosecutions who is chosen by the Justice Ministry director-general in consultation with the civil service chief; and a retired judge chosen by the head of the Knesset State Control Committee, which is always chaired by a member of the opposition.

Baharav-Miara charges that Donnenfeld exercised undue influence over the selection of the person he’s meant to appoint in consultation with Civil Service Commissioner Doron Cohen.

Between that candidate, the lawyer appointed by Levin, and Donnenfeld himself, “the result… is that a majority of committee members — three of five members — are representatives of the minister, or were appointed with his significant involvement,” Baharav-Miara says.

Moreover, she notes that the amendment passed by the Knesset sets three members as the legal quorum for the committee to make personnel decisions in the new DIPI.

“These facts… illustrate the political involvement in establishing the committee, and the politicization of law enforcement that the amendment is leading to,” Baharav-Miara says.