{"id":307906,"date":"2026-02-24T15:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/307906\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T15:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:33:10","slug":"ag-warns-bill-risks-political-control-of-police-watchdog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/307906\/","title":{"rendered":"AG warns bill risks political control of police watchdog"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara<\/a> and State Attorney Amit Aisman on Tuesday issued coordinated warnings against a coalition-backed bill that would remove the Justice Ministry\u2019s Police Investigation Department (PID)<\/a> from the State Attorney\u2019s Office, saying the proposal risks exposing investigations into police misconduct to political influence – at a time of mounting strain within Israel\u2019s law enforcement system.<\/p>\n

The position papers – submitted to the Knesset\u2019s joint Constitution and National Security Committee ahead of deliberations on Likud MK Moshe Saada\u2019s bill – argue that the proposed restructuring would create a parallel law enforcement authority operating outside the professional oversight of the attorney-general, raising the prospect of divergent enforcement standards and politically driven investigative priorities.<\/p>\n

According to Aisman\u2019s letter to committee chair MK Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party), the bill would establish \u201ctwo law enforcement systems with the potential for conflict,\u201d by severing the PID\u2019s professional subordination to binding legal guidance issued by the attorney-general and policy directives issued by the State Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Israel currently has no precedent for an investigative or prosecutorial authority operating outside that professional chain of command, the letter notes.<\/p>\n

The proposed appointment mechanism for the head of the reconstituted unit would further deepen that concern, prosecutors warned, by giving the justice minister, through the ministry\u2019s director-general, effective influence over the composition of the selection committee tasked with choosing the PID\u2019s director<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Mahash,Mahash, the Police Internal Investigations Department, in Jerusalem on November 30, 2025. (credit: YONATAN SINDEL\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

Combined with the unit\u2019s planned institutional separation from the prosecution service, the model raises a growing risk that decisions on whether to open investigations, close cases, or pursue indictments could become exposed to \u201cforbidden political influence,\u201d Aisman wrote.<\/p>\n

A separate legal advisory opinion prepared within the Justice Ministry warned that the bill\u2019s proposed creation of a politically appointed \u201ccoordinating supervisor\u201d could allow the executive branch to intervene in investigative priorities – including halting inquiries deemed inconvenient to the government or fast-tracking cases aligned with its interests.<\/p>\n

In its formal position, the Attorney-General\u2019s Office<\/a> said the proposal would \u201clead to political control over the PID and transform it from a body designed to protect citizens into a tool in the hands of the government to direct investigations against police officers and shape police behavior according to the needs of the ruling authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

PID in risk of losing independence<\/p>\n

The PID currently functions as an independent investigatory body within the prosecution service tasked with probing alleged criminal misconduct by police officers.<\/p>\n

Supporters of the bill, including Saada – himself a former deputy head of the PID – have argued that institutional separation is necessary to eliminate perceived conflicts of interest between prosecutors who rely on police investigators in criminal cases and a watchdog unit tasked with investigating those same officers.<\/p>\n

But both the State Attorney\u2019s Office and the attorney-general noted that earlier public reviews – including a 2023 State Comptroller audit and a 2025 Justice Ministry panel examining the structure of the PID – did not recommend severing the unit\u2019s professional subordination to the prosecution or creating an external arbitration mechanism for disputes between the PID and police investigators.<\/p>\n

Aisman also stressed that the PID has, in practice, brought criminal proceedings against senior officers despite its institutional ties to the prosecution – including district commanders and, in recent years, senior figures across Israel\u2019s law enforcement apparatus – with no concrete examples presented in which professional proximity prevented the unit from investigating police wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Removing the unit from that framework, he warned, could instead create parallel enforcement standards – \u201cone for suspects investigated by the State Attorney\u2019s Office and another for suspects investigated by the new unit\u201d – potentially undermining due process protections and the rights of crime victims.<\/p>\n

The legal intervention comes as police officials reportedly continue to grapple with operational fatigue following extended wartime deployment and the reported internal criticism of investigative bottlenecks under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir – developments that legal authorities cited in committee discussions as heightening the need for a structurally independent oversight mechanism.<\/p>\n

In a sharply worded response Tuesday, Ben-Gvir accused Baharav-Miara and Aisman of opposing the reform in order to preserve the PID as \u201ca crime organization under the guise of law enforcement used to fabricate cases and settle scores,\u201d and said their objections would only strengthen efforts to advance the legislation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman on Tuesday issued coordinated warnings against a coalition-backed bill that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21624,16376,85,46,1158,76085,43,65702],"class_list":["post-307906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-attorney-general","tag-gali-baharav-miara","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-police","tag-justice-ministry","tag-news","tag-state-attorney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}