Since its establishment in 2005, the Legal Forum for Israel has set as one of its major objectives to act to ensure sound government, and recognized the unreasonable amount of power the Attorney General holds, and his influence over government policies and actions.
To that end, the Legal Forum has been actively working to advance the establishment of a regulatory body of the Attorney General’s office. Following many attempts to stall the formation of this body it is now clear that this much needed move is now going ahead and a search committee will be established to locate the individuals who will serve in the regulatory body. On Monday July 8 the Knesset State Control Committee held a meeting with Justice Minister Tzipi Livni regarding the audit committee for the Attorney General’s Office.
Minister Livni stated that the new body will be responsible for handling complaints against all prosecution bodies in Israel, including the police prosecution, prosecutors of governmental agencies, and other prosecution bodies acting on behalf of the Attorney General. Furthermore, following requests from the Legal Forum for Israel and other organizations, Minister Livni stated that the body will also handle complaints from the general public, and that every citizen will have the right to file a complaint which will be carefully examined.
Attorney Hila Cohen from the Legal Forum was present at the meeting, and in a letter to Minister Livni expressed the Legal Forum’s support and in addition raised some concerns regarding the new body. Firstly, the question of the membership of the search committee is a very significant one. At present it seems that the Attorney General will be heading the search committee and this can cause a serious conflict of interest which must be avoided in order to remove any semblance of concern and ensure the public’s trust in this new body.
Placing the Attorney General as the head of the search committee will completely undermine the whole process and affect the workings of the regulatory body. Therefore it seems fitting that the individual to head this committee should be a retired judge, if not the Justice Minster herself. In addition, as mentioned during the meeting, the composition of the search committee has not been finalized and the Legal Forum has presented a list of bodies whose representatives should be serving in this regulatory body. It is also extremely important that the authority and responsibility of this body be publicized, as well as the manner in which criteria are set as to what issues will be addressed.
The need for this body to begin operating cannot be stressed strongly enough. It is absolutely vital in order to restore the public’s faith in the legal system and ensure that all governmental agencies are acting according to the law and the rights of all citizens of the state of Israel are protected. The formation of this body is of strategic importance as it is a major step forward in the efforts to ensure that the state of Israel remains a Jewish and democratic state.
