Clashes between police officers and demonstrators, Yom Kippur fighters, in Caesarea/Moked Caesarea
Nothing happening here in the last few months is amusing, yet the screenwriter who wrote us the weekly episode of our lives was probably in an amused mood this week, so he cast a judge whose name is Ehud Kaplan for the main role in this episode. He was the one who was asked by the police to discuss the case of Amir Hashakal, one of the protesters who was arrested the night before at a demonstration in Caesarea near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house. Kaplan rejected the police's request to post bail for the release of the "Kaplanist", Amir Hashakal, just as he had already rejected previous requests for extensions of detention of "Kaplanists".
Apart from the release, Judge Kaplan wrote extremely harsh words about the police: "The requirement to sign a commitment on the part of the intellect is only intended to humiliate him. It seems that the police are not acting to protect the freedom of movement of the citizens but for something else altogether." By the way, the judge suggested that other detainees and protesters in similar circumstances file civil lawsuits against the state. I will add here that they have someone to learn from - precisely from the same person to whom today the policemen raise their eyes - the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir. The current minister is the offender then. As a constant delinquent and a constant arrestee, Ben Gvir several times filed civil lawsuits against the police and won tens of thousands of shekels for unjustified arrests.
In any case, the police were blown away by Judge Kaplan's text and, in an unprecedented manner, released a press release: "The honorable court exceeded its authority and its blunt statements condemning the police and its officers. The court even deviated from what is accepted when it gave far-reaching interpretations to a legal and legitimate requirement that the suspect sign a self-undertaking." With this enormous outrage, the police appealed to the district court against Judge Kaplan's decision. The appeal was dismissed.
Presumably, only presumptively, Judge Kaplan's decision should encourage democracy-seeking citizens. Here is a judge who is not afraid of the spirit of the government, who understands very well that the claim of risking freedom of movement in the place where the demonstrators were arrested is an unfounded claim.
The judge perceived the despicable practice that the police cultivated during the protests of keeping suspects in custody overnight without any justifiable reason, and only due to the fact that this is apparently within their authority. These arrests go under the radar for us every week. This is the place to mention that the Arrests Law allows police officers to exercise their authority to arrest only for one of the following three reasons: fear of disrupting investigative procedures, fear of fleeing from the threat of justice and danger to the public. The police know that none of the protesters they arrest meet one of these definitions, but they also know that they have the authority to detain the suspect for 24 hours before bringing him before a judge. And so, a suspect who is arrested towards evening, there is no problem to "punish" him at night in a holding cell, this despite the fact that arrest is of course not a tool of punishment, but a tool of investigation. The police officers in the protest demonstrations are using this authority in their hands more and more. Among other things, Judge Kaplan resented this.
So why don't I really think that the judge's decision should encourage those who want democracy? Well, now is the time to take a look at the judge's profile: he has been serving at the Magistrate's Court in Hadera for 22 years and his age is 67. That is, he is three years away from retirement. Kaplan knows that he will no longer be promoted to the district court with such a short horizon, and therefore, in simple and unwashed words, he is no longer paying anyone. He can write what he thinks, without considering whether it is good for him or bad for him for promotion.
We used to be crazy about the above paragraph. Sorry? Does a judge decide on his words according to his chances of promotion? God forbid a judge will base his rulings on such considerations? Well, today it is no longer really in doubt. For those who missed it, even this week the missing standards were not filled in Israeli courts (except in the traffic courts, thank you Minister Yariv Levin); The reason is that the chairman of the committee for the selection of judges, Minister of Justice Levin, is not ready to promote the judge of the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, Joya Scape-Shapira, to the district court. It is his insistence on this matter that prevents agreements on the appointment of the other judges.
We have already written here in recent weeks that the sole reason why Levin and his two coalition members, Minister Orit Struck and MK Yitzhak Kreuzer, do not want to promote Scafa-Shapira is because they did not extend the detention of two Arab residents who glorified the Shiva events in October (by the way, we proved here that In general, Shapira's hand is not easy on the trigger in arrests and in the past she quickly released arrested extremist right-wing people as well), as well as convicting the MGB fighter, Orian Bar Khalifa, who used unjustified violence against a resident of the eastern part of the city. We also mentioned here that in the past as a prosecutor Scafa-Shapira filed an indictment against Ben Gabir.
In the committee, Strock, Kreuzer and Levin did not make any claim about Shapira's professionalism, but only about her rulings that do not agree with the will of their base. Now comes the obvious question: if this trouble falls on an average young judge in a peace court and he is asked to discuss a case with any political implications, what are the chances that the thought of how Ben Gabir, Kreuzer's patron, will receive his ruling, will not cross his mind? He doesn't exist. That young judge knows very well that Ben Gabir will have a direct impact on the question of his promotion to the district court. When he writes his rulings, he will think less about the articles of the professors from the university where he studied, but more about what Strock and Kreuzer will say about him in the committee. Most of the arrest cases do not go to veteran judges like Kaplan, but to exactly those young judges.
The innocence is gone. From now on, you will be alert to any judge who receives a case of political significance, even if it seems marginal to you. Check from now on what his background is, what his age is, what his promotion horizon is, when the matter of his promotion should come up to the committee; All this is happening now under the auspices of the war while our heads are elsewhere. Those who roll their eyes and talk about the fact that "we must not go back to the sixth of October" continue with full power in the destruction of the legal system. The destruction engine works well, only this time it's quieter so we don't notice.