High Court expands panel for state ombudsman Oct. 7 probe hearings to five justices

The High Court of Justice expands a judicial panel to five judges for a pending hearing on petitions against the state comptroller’s probe into the failings surrounding the invasion and atrocities perpetrated by Hamas and other terror groups on October 7, 2023.

The court’s order says that a date for the hearing needs to be set in short order, but a firm date has yet to be decided.

Expanding judicial panels beyond the standard three justices generally indicates that the court believes the issue to be of special importance.

The Military Advocate General’s Corps’ Military Defense unit and the Movement for Quality Government in Israel watchdog group petitioned the High Court in September against State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman’s review of the October 7 catastrophe.

The organizations allege that there are “substantive flaws” in Englman’s information-gathering processes that prejudiced the rights of some subjects of his probe, and argue more broadly that the ombudsman has no remit to conduct an inquiry into the October 7 attack, since the role of the office is to examine the processes of the agencies under review but not to examine policy and strategy.

Englman insists that Basic Law: State Comptroller authorizes him to examine the functioning of all state institutions, and that, due to the ongoing refusal of the government to establish a state commission of inquiry, his probe is the only state-backed examination of the October 7 invasion.