The High Court of Justice hearing on five petitions against the Police Law, which subordinates law enforcement to the National Security Ministry, began on Wednesday morning.
Petitioners and their representatives filed into the courtroom, including Labor leader Merav Michaeli, MK Yoav Segalovich, the Movement of Quality Government of Israeli head Dr. Elad Shraga, Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), and the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir entered a few minutes late to the hearing, flanked by security.
The petitions argue that the amendment to police ordinances promotes politicization of law enforcement and allows for the pursuit of political interests, by allowing the National Security Minister to set guidelines and principles for the police and their investigations.
Shraga opened, arguing at length how the Police Law was part of a broader picture, a broader movement of anti-democratic measures that included the amendment to allow Shas Chairman Arye Deri to resume his ministerial positions, changes to the Judicial Selection Committee, and other judicial reform efforts. Justice Uzi Vogelman was critical of Shraga’s narrative framing, advising him to focus on the details of the legal formula.
“This amendment, amendment 37 [of police ordinances], creates a reality with the police,” in which law enforcement are not independent, said Shraga, “as part of the government under the national security minister.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks to the press outside the police headquarters during the annual Jerusalem pride march on June 1, 2023 (credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)Police amendments promoting politicization of law enforcement
Shraga said that the impact of the amendment didn’t need to be discussed in the theoretical realm, as the consequences were already being felt in the field with excessive use of force, the minister giving orders in the field, officers throwing stun grenades at protesters, and the arresting of journalists.
Attorney Oded Gazit, representing MK Mickey Levy and Segalovich, said that the impact was an indication of the amemendment’s interpretation by the government. Gazit said that Ben-Gvir himself had said in the past that the amendment would allow him to guide the police to his desired objectives. The past few months served as a test to Ben-Gvir’s interpretation, in which the minister interfered in field operations in Jerusalem protests. Actors within the minister’s office had also been contacting officers throughout the police force.
A problem with blurred divisions between political leaders and law enforcement, highlighted by a representative of the Arab Higher Monitoring Committee, is that regardless of the orientation of the government in power, it is always under suspicion that external interests are guiding a national security minister’s actions.
Shraga said that the provision allowing the national security minister to set guidelines for the police was “very vague and amorphous” allowing a great degree of control of the police and didn’t clearly establish the terms of relationship between police chief and the minister. The result was a situation in which officers were uncertain about to whom they report.
The minister’s ability to set guidelines for police investigation was equally unclear and expansive, said Shraga.
“Something that was clear to everyone until today was that a minister didn’t involve themselves in an investigation,” said Shraga.
Shraga argued that it was important to protect the checks and balances that are fundamental to democracy, and that the amendment’s removal of the divisions between political authorities and law enforcement threatened these principles. He said that Ben-Gvir’s party members had made it clear that the objective was the subservience of the police to the minister instead of the police chief.
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