MKs give initial nod to bill allowing justice minister to tap alternative prosecutor

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 was approved in a preliminary reading in the Knesset on Wednesday.

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 bill was submitted by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman and Otzma Yehudit MK Zvi Sukkot, and was passed by a vote of 56-44.

The explanatory text of the bill stated 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.

“In light of this, the bill seeks to rectify the situation and allow the justice minister to appoint an external prosecutor to the prosecutor’s office in these cases, similar to a police investigation conducted by the Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) and not by the police investigation agencies,” the new bill reads.

The Israel Democracy Institute criticized the bill, stating that it would create a “perpetual threat” against law enforcement officials whose role it is to decide on politicians’ legal matters.

“If a justice minister can appoint a prosecutor according to his considerations and also fire him, the result is the dependence of the law enforcement system on the government,” the institute posted on X.

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 Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman were determined to have conflicts of interest over the scandal.

In the Sde Teiman case, former military advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi has admitted that she authorized the leak of a surveillance video last year purporting to show the abuse of a Palestinian security detainee by IDF soldiers at the Sde Teiman military facility. She then lied about the matter while ostensibly leading the investigation to find the leaker.

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.

Baharav-Miara has condemned Levin’s efforts to bar her from the investigation, saying he has no authority to take such action.

Levin, whose legislative bid to hobble the judiciary has sparked mass protests since he announced it in early 2023, has championed an ongoing effort to oust Baharav-Miara altogether, which is the subject of a separate court battle. He has also pushed legislation to divide up the AG’s role and strip it of its power to constrain the government.