MKs pass law allowing courts to issue restraining orders on basis of secret evidence
Controversial temporary measure allows judges to impose restrictions on citizens’ freedom of movement and expression based on ‘confidential intelligence material’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
A controversial bill allowing district court judges to impose restrictions on citizens’ freedom of movement and expression on the basis of secret evidence “in order to prevent serious damage to a person’s safety or property” passed its final reading in the Knesset 32-0 on Wednesday evening.
According to its explanatory notes, the new law, sponsored by MK Zvika Fogel of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, is intended as a two-year temporary measure to enable law enforcement to deal with “a significant increase in the activity of organized crime in Israel,” especially in Arab communities.
Per the law, courts will now be allowed to impose measures based on intelligence briefings by police that include “confidential intelligence material, visible evidence and any other material regarding the assessment that a person is active in a criminal organization,” along with the level of threat posed by the individual.
It also lets police deviate from the prevailing rules of evidence in presentations to the court, which its drafters admitted was “an unusual tool in which a judicial order is used to violate the rights of an individual, due to a forward-looking concern and in the absence of sufficient incriminating evidence regarding acts attributed to him in the past.”
Among the options given to judges by the law are limiting a suspect’s time outside their home, prohibiting them from traveling to certain locations or communicating with certain people, stopping them from driving, and prohibiting travel abroad.
Moreover, police would be allowed to check the residences or vehicles of those subject to such orders, access their computers or even physically search them.
In a statement on Wednesday evening, Fogel boasted that he was “protecting the public with this historic bill,” which provides for the use of “house arrest or restraining orders for members of a criminal organization, based on intelligence information for a period of up to six months.”
Speaking with the Knesset National Security Committee, which Fogel chairs, police representatives had complained that a lack of cooperation with the police, due to fear of reprisal or distrust of law enforcement, sometimes means that they do not have the necessary evidence to back up concrete threats to human life.
However, Guy Lurie, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, told The Times of Israel in June that while the need to equip police with tools to address rising crime is real, this “is a very dangerous path that the bill is taking because when we are in a crisis, we sometimes take actions that infringe on basic rights such as the right to due process.”
“I think that this bill is using measures in the field of anti-terrorist activities and applying them to the criminal field,” he continued, saying this creates problems in “protecting the rights of suspects and defendants.”
Asked about the risk of the law being abused, Yisrael Beytenu MK Evgeny Sova, one of the legislation’s backers, told The Times of Israel this summer that there was “not a chance” of this happening.
“The judge is not deciding on a conviction. He is issuing a restraining order. This order also has a limited period. There are conditions, but it is another tool that should help prevent crime,” he said at the time.
“I trust the judges. That’s why I don’t see a concern here that someone might get hurt. The police will not come to court or ask for a restraining order for someone who was not at all known and not connected to the underworld.”
