Backing spyware panel, Smotrich says essential to ensure police work is ‘clean’

27 August 2023, 4:33 pm

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Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says his support for a state panel that will probe police for their use of spyware is based on the shared desire for “strong, independent” enforcement authorities, despite concerns that it will allow the government to interfere in ongoing cases, including against politicians.

“The need for enforcement authorities with clean hands fully protecting civil and personal rights, which are a keystone of the rule of law, is an essential need and there is no argument,” he writes on X.

“If some of the enforcement authorities’ work was flawed, heaven forfend, I’m confident it’s a prime interest of all authorities to find and be rid of the scourge,” he adds.