High Court gives government another two months to decide how to investigate October 7

The High Court of Justice declines to order the government to establish a state commission of inquiry into the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and atrocities for the moment and says it is giving the government another two months to establish a framework for a state-backed investigation.

The decision follows a tempestuous court hearing last week when pro-government activists tried to forcibly enter the courtroom in protest of the hearing itself, and during which the justices were highly critical of the government’s failure to establish an investigative commission into the catastrophe.

The court says in today’s decision that “the time has long since come to begin investigating the events of October 7,” but adds that the government nevertheless “has broad discretion” as to how to implement “the obligations incumbent upon it” to conduct investigations.

“We have deemed it appropriate at this stage to allow the government an additional period of some two months, in the hope that it will soon find a suitable framework for investigating the events [of October 7], which will gain broad public backing,” the court says in its decision.

The justices also explicitly assert that the court does have the authority to review and deliberate on government decisions as to whether or not to establish a state commission of inquiry, based on previous court rulings which were themselves based on Basic Law: The Judiciary.

Its comments are a pointed rejection of arguments advanced by the government and its supporters, including the protesters who tried to break into the courtroom, that the court has no power of judicial review over the establishment of a state commissions of inquiry.