Inauguration ceremony of a new building for the Magistrate's Court in Safed.
September 27, 2023/Paul 12
The procrastination in the courts is an open secret, proceedings last for years and the mills of justice grind slowly.
Now they came to me and voila!
Data that can corroborate the claims about procrastination, this is an Excel table full of data that describes who are the judges who have cases pending for more than six months in all the different courts in the country.
We note that according to the regulations of the civil procedure, a judgment in civil issues - legal proceedings that are not criminal, should be given within 90 days in the first instance, that is, in the court where the procedure was opened and not in the courts that hear appeals.
In addition, the law states that in criminal proceedings the judges must write the verdict within 30 days.
In an investigation conducted by Walla!, it appears that in many cases that are pending in the most important courts in Israel, there is a delay of many months and years in issuing the verdict.
In individual cases, there was a delay of about a decade in issuing the verdict.
We note that in some of the files we examined, there was a change in their status until the time of the response to our request, as you can see below.
In many cases, there is a delay of months and years in issuing the verdict, some of them even wait for almost a decade.
Supreme Court Hall/Reuben Castro
So what is happening in the Supreme Court?
According to the data we have, the appeal filed by News 13 against Minister of Transportation Miri Regev has been waiting since the end of 2020 for a decision and so far no verdict has been given on the issue.
The case was discussed by the panel of judges: Yitzhak Amit, Noam Solberg and Khaled Kabov.
This is a request for leave to appeal filed by News 13 against the ruling of the Jerusalem District Court which stated that the channel had published defamation of the minister in the investigation 'No Daghost'.
It is not clear why an important public discussion about the freedom of the press about an investigation published back in 2015, has been going on in the corridors of the courts for about three years.
When we approached the judiciary on this issue, their response was: "In the case in question, the verdict will be given today or tomorrow (regardless of this case)".
In fact, the verdict was given at the time of writing these lines.
Another case, opened in 2021, was waiting until a few days ago on the desk of judges Yael Wilner, Ofer Grosskopf and Ruth Ronen.
This is a complicated case that deals with the sale of shares in Ordeka Ltd., in this case too the duration of the proceedings was quite long.
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Regarding a case that has been pending since 2021, the court said: "A verdict will be given today or tomorrow."
Supreme Court Hall/Reuben Castro
We asked the District Court in Tel Aviv about two different cases that are still awaiting a verdict.
These are cases that are pending with Judges Tamar Abrahami and Yael Ilani, one of which was opened in 2013, and the last one in 2016. At the Judicial Authority they responded to our inquiry on the matter and told us that, "The delay in issuing the judgments was caused by an unusual workload that was created following a long period in which the inventory of cases was particularly unusual , due to a lack of tort judges".
In the District Court in Haifa, a case opened in 2014 is awaiting a verdict by Judge Daniel Fish.
When we turned to the judicial authority, the following response was given: "An agreement is being negotiated between the parties in the case, and therefore an extension was granted for the submission of summaries first until the end of February 2024, and further at the request of the parties, another extension was granted until June 2024."
Similarly, the National Labor Court is awaiting with Judge Leah Glicksman a case from 2019, the judicial authority claims: "A judgment is expected to be issued in the near future."
About a case that has been pending since 2013, it was said: "Delayed as a result of workload and lack of judges."
Supreme Court Hall/Flash 90, Jonathan Zindel
At the Central Magistrate's Court, about 150 cases have been pending for more than six months.
When we asked the judicial authority about this, they responded to our inquiry on the subject: "In the time that has passed since the submission of the response as part of the Freedom of Information request, the handling of approximately 30 cases has been completed. It should be noted that approximately 180,000 cases are opened in the Magistrates Courts of the Central District each year, which are handled by approximately 114 judicial authorities The president and his deputies are working to reduce the number of cases awaiting a verdict."
"It is outrageous and saddening to discover that judges are whining about the law that obliges them to issue a verdict within 90 days from the moment the procedure ends," said Yehuda Foa, the chairman of 'Betzalmo' who submitted the freedom of information request. "Some even extend the time even beyond 180 days.
However, we were happy to find out that the vast majority of judges are punctual and give judgments on time.
We demand that the Minister of Justice act and deal with those judges who exceed the deadlines and delay the verdicts."
The response of the judiciary: "The judiciary has been dealing with a shortage of dozens of judges for a long time.
The heavy burden placed on the shoulders of the judges was made even worse by the war of iron swords.
Paying attention to this burden, there are cases in which the work of writing the verdict takes longer, either due to their complexity or for various reasons, for example: in criminal cases with multiple defendants, in cases in which it is necessary to obtain expert opinions, in class actions or due to delays caused by the corona epidemic or as a result of the war period, etc. plunder.
Despite this, under the circumstances of the heavy load, the judges do their best to advance the hearing of the cases before them."
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