The High Court held a hearing on Tuesday to discuss petitions against the amendment to the so-called “Ben-Gvir law” that subordinates the police to the National Security Minister.
Acting Supreme Court President Uzi Fogelman said the amendments would be a “very severe violation of civil rights.”
Judge Yehiel Kosher said, “Minister Ben-Gvir refused to agree […] that he would act in a state manner, because he considered it a personal insult.”
Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai is expected to oppose the amendment.
The Knesset representative at the High Court hearing on the Ben-Gvir Law, attorney Yitzhak Brett, said the law “does not change the distribution of powers between the minister and the police officers and does not grant him the authority to intervene in operative decisions of the police.”
‘Effectively a militia’
Dr. Eliad Shraga, chairman of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, said at the start of the session: “We have seen everything that we have warned against come true in the last year and a half. We have seen the minister [Ben-Gvir] meddling in the policy regarding investigations, we have seen the minister meddling in operative law enforcement policy, we have seen the minister meddling in appointments policy, and we have seen the minister for all intents and purposes running the police.”
“This is an abnormal situation, where the police is effectively a militia at the minister’s service. We live in a democratic country, and so we insist that the amendment to the Police Ordinance be repealed, that the Israel Police be an institution of the state, subject only to the rule of law.”
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