Bill giving justice minister power to appoint prosecutor if AG, state attorney are suspected of crimes approved in preliminary reading

A bill enabling the justice minister to appoint a prosecutor in the event that the attorney general or the state attorney is suspected of a crime by the police is approved in a preliminary reading in the Knesset.

According to the bill, the police would turn directly to the justice minister in such circumstances, and the minister would appoint a prosecutor to manage the investigation.

That prosecutor would be granted all the powers enjoyed by the attorney general and the state attorney, meaning they would have the power to decide whether to file indictments once the investigation was concluded.

The explanatory text of the bill states that it is designed to fill a lacuna in the law whereby there are no explicit instructions determined in legislation for dealing with suspicions against the attorney general and the state attorney who head Israel’s prosecutorial services.

The bill comes against the background of Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s ongoing effort to appoint a supervisor for the Sde Teiman video leak affair, since Attorney General Gali Bahrav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman were determined to have conflicts of interest over the scandal.

The High Court has issued strict limitations on who Levin can appoint, repeatedly stressing in several decisions on the matter the highly problematic nature of a politician being involved in the criminal investigation process.