Opinion | The Predatory Politics of Jurists Israel today

The case of Netanyahu's plea bargaining reveals another aspect of the distortion of the legal system - its distinct political character and irrelevant considerations.

It once again demonstrates the dominance of the State Attorney's Office and the unbridled power of the Spokesman's Institution.

It is important for subordination, as well as the Knesset and the government, to the generally accepted criticism and rules of the game, to deprive it of its power to dictate rules that are convenient to it and to evade intrusive external control required, properly, from any other state body.

All the parties involved - the State Attorney's Office, the counsel, Aharon Barak and of course Netanyahu himself - have no real interest in the criminal or legal issue: neither the severity of the offenses attributed to the defendant, nor the appropriate punishment for them. They all focus on the political struggle: how to preserve or thwart the chances of his return to power, what the political consequences will be and how to preserve or tighten the grip and power of the legal system in the country. This is the reason for focusing on the question of stigma and its political consequences - both the advisor's threshold conditions, Netanyahu's dilemmas and the criticism of the State Attorney's Office. The most irrelevant consideration of the issue at hand is, as expected, the father of the manipulative "constitutional revolution" that controlled the High Court of Israel at the expense of the other authorities - former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak. He admits that his purpose is To preserve this status, in view of the ongoing and aggravating process of losing public confidence in the judiciary, and indirectly - even to reward Netanyahu for many years in which "Barak believes that Netanyahu's many supporters have lost faith because of what they see as the politicization of his criminal charges, and fears that the continuation of the trial will erode to a less dangerous degree what is left of that trust.

Netanyahu trial: The second day for the testimony of investigator Yaniv Peleg // Photo: Yoni Rickner

Systematic domination

But trust was undermined before Netanyahu's trial, and in a wide range of areas of systematic domination.

Even in this short sheet it is worth giving three salient examples.

The first concerns many years of preserving criminal investigations for politicians critical of the judiciary (for example, Yaakov Ne'eman and Ruby Rivlin), which culminated in the blatant misuse of the powers of the police, the prosecutor's office and the court in the case of Haim Ramon.

The second is a gross interference with the state's duty to maintain its sovereignty against tens of thousands of infiltrators, who force their stay on the public, who have controlled the worldview of High Court judges in repeated disqualifications and dubious reasoning of Knesset legislation.

The third recently reached a new peak, when the High Court dared to declare its readiness to discuss the legality of a Basic Law (regardless of the nature of its ruling).

After the judicial system has controlled itself in High Court rulings over the most significant area of ​​politics - the plausibility of the balance between various legitimate considerations and values ​​in all matters - it now seeks to rule itself, in transparent disguise, also on filtering politicians at the expense of people's sovereignty.

The jurists oversee in the name of “rule of law” all aspects of public life.

The legal advisers in government ministries, who use their power to frustrate in their interpretation of policies they do not see fit, are subject to the ombudsman, who is also the attorney general.

When the State Attorney's Office frustrates predatory in the name of democracy, effective control (as former District Court President Hila Gerstel tried to do) over its own discretion, it puts the most powerful body in Israel, and only it, above the need to hold the public accountable.

We are all asked to believe that power can corrupt everyone, except the legal guardian angels, who deserve to be given absolute power.

Were we wrong?

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