Petition filed against law critics say ‘politicizes’ police investigations agency |
A liberal watchdog is seeking to strike down a new law giving the justice minister a heavy degree of control over the agency that investigates police wrongdoing, arguing that the measure will politicize the agency.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel filed the petition to the High Court of Justice first thing Thursday morning, hours after the Knesset passed the law late Wednesday night.
The law is controversial since it gives the justice minister a decisive voice in choosing the head of the Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) and another key official in the agency.
The petition argues that the law deals a blow to the agency’s independence, and that it will severely harm the rule of law, giving the justice minister undue influence over which police officers will be investigated for alleged wrongdoing. That could, the petition says, affect officers’ willingness to investigate government officials and their close associates, out of fear that they will be targeted in a probe.
Likud MK Moshe Saada, who previously served as DIPI deputy director and who introduced the legislation, argued that DIPI’s prior subordination to the State Attorney’s Office, Israel’s professional prosecution agency, created a conflict of interest, since prosecutors and police work together. That arrangement gave the State Attorney’s Office too much power over DIPI, he alleged.
Critics of the law have not necessarily opposed removing DIPI from the........