The bill promoted by Justice Minister Gideon Saar for the establishment of an abbreviated administrative route in the field of traffic offenses is nothing but a sham and a showcase in which there is no hope for real change in the corridors of the bureaucracy of the traffic courts.
Contrary to Saar's claim that the reform will shorten queues in traffic courts, in practice the result will hurt litigants.
Some background sentences.
According to the Minister's plan, an administrative traffic tribunal will be established in the Ministry of Justice, which will act as the first instance to deal with traffic violations of the choice of law type.
The hearings in the court will be conducted mainly through a digital interface, so that if a frontal hearing is required, it will take place by technological means without being required to arrive physically, except in exceptional cases.
In addition, an administrative traffic register will be established that will deal with minor traffic violations, such as those that result in the payment of a fine and points.
The ministry is talking about an unusual load that requires a revolutionary change, but this is a figure that is not true.
In the traffic courts in the Tel Aviv and Central District, each incumbent judge has only between 1,000 and 1,500 cases per year. This is an exceptional load and not one that cannot be dealt with.
The purpose of the law can be achieved in another way.
Most court requests for court choices are made to cancel the points, and therefore changing the scoring method, while eliminating points for offenses that do not pose a traffic risk, will significantly reduce the load loaded and benefit significantly more.
But this is not where the problems in the Saar program end.
One of the main reasons why citizens want to be tried lies in the unfortunate fact that the police do not allow the evidence to be examined before the citizen has asked to be tried.
In a democracy a citizen should be allowed to have the full evidence before deciding whether to seek trial.
Under the proposed plan, the non-criminal offense register will be more exposed than the criminal record, and therefore will also harm the chances of citizens being admitted to workplaces for minor traffic offenses.
And as if that were not enough, from now on the payment of the fine, which the citizen will receive from the police for traffic offenses of the choice of trial, will not only amount to a fine and will also include mandatory points, which may also result in the citizen Revocation of license.
On the contrary, an administrative procedure will significantly increase the expenses of citizens for the purpose of proving their innocence.
Also, in this proceeding, the citizen is denied the presumption of innocence, since an attorney will not be allowed to interrogate the police officer who records the report in court, and his client will be considered guilty until proven otherwise.
He is denied the right of access to the courts and the right of argument, while the police are exempt from giving an account of their actions.
When it comes to the word of a police officer versus the word of a citizen, in the vast majority of cases, the police officer's position will prevail.
If a police officer is exempted from being questioned on his version and licenses are revoked for nine months or more without the possibility of defense and a defendant is not represented as an attorney, this makes us a police state and complies with the rules of North Korean-style popular democracy.
This would also be another serious breach of public trust in the justice system, which would become rubber stamps by a court official to be called so-called judges.
If you really want to deal with the burden, you can triple the fine as a minimum penalty for those who want to be tried and come out guilty, and this is one of many offers from the alternative solutions arsenal.
But on these less pleasant sides, Minister Saar did not bother to tell us.
Violation of basic rights should be done for a worthy cause while minimizing harm to the citizen.
With all due respect to the efficiency of the hearings and the apparent congestion in the traffic courts, they can not serve a proper purpose when on the other hand a fatal violation of fundamental rights.
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