Supreme Court rejects Malka Leifer’s appeal against new psychiatric review
Three-member expert panel scheduled to review alleged pedophile’s mental state on Wednesday, ahead of court hearing next week to discuss whether she is mentally fit for extradition
By JEREMY SHARONMalka Leifer, a former Australian school principal who is wanted in Australia on suspicion of sexually abusing students, walks in the corridor of the Jerusalem District Court accompanied by Israeli Prison Service guards, in Jerusalem(photo credit: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Malka Leifer’s defense attorneys that she not be required to undergo a new psychiatric evaluation, which is now scheduled to take place on Wednesday.A hearing on its findings will take place in the Jerusalem District Court next Tuesday.Leifer has claimed to be mentally unfit for trial since she was arrested in Israel in 2014 on charges of the sexual molestation and rape of school girls at the Adas Israel school in Melbourne, where she worked from 2000 to 2008.Proceedings for her extradition to Australia were frozen in 2016, until strong evidence surfaced that she was apparently feigning mental illness.The new three-member expert panel was ordered by Jerusalem District Court Judge Chana Miriam Lomp in September, after she ruled that there were problems with a psychiatric review from February 2018 that said Leifer was fit to stand trial.Previous psychiatric opinions submitted to the court determining Leifer was not fit for trial, as well as doctors from the prison service having prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for her, meant that a new panel was required, Lomp ruled.Leifer’s attorneys originally stated that she would not cooperate with the panel, but the courts subsequently ruled that she was required to undergo the new review.In the Supreme Court hearing on Tuesday, Leifer’s defense attorneys vehemently objected to the new psychiatric review, arguing that the Jerusalem District Court ruling had decisively rejected the February 2018 opinion that Leifer was fit for trial, and that there was no necessity for a new review, since the original opinions stating she was not fit for trial should stand.Her defense attorney also questioned the authority of the Jerusalem District Court to order a psychiatric reviews at all, saying that such examinations can be ordered only if the individual represents a danger to themselves or others, which the attorney said is not the case with Leifer.“The district court believed that there is a doubt [regarding Leifer’s mental fitness for trial] that justifies an additional clarification as to the mental fitness of the appellant,” wrote Judge David Mintz in his rejection of the appeal.He added that there were “no grounds for interference” by the Supreme Court in the lower court’s decision to obtain “clear and final results.”Mintz also rejected the argument that Lomp’s September 2018 decision calling into doubt the psychiatric review that Leifer was fit for trial meant that no new review was needed.The judge wrote that just because Lomp had expressed doubts regarding the previous review, did not mean that a new review was unjustified.Indeed, he wrote that given the “legally and factually complicated” nature of the case and the contradictory psychiatric opinions submitted about Leifer’s status, it would be hard not to have doubts.Manny Waks, head of the Kol V’Oz organization campaigning against sexual abuse in the Jewish community, said that he now expected next week’s district court hearing “to rule that Malka Leifer is indeed fit to face justice, and that her extradition hearing will finally recommence. This ongoing farce must end, and justice must prevail – for Leifer’s victims and for other victims who are being deterred from pursuing justice.”Leifer’s attorneys Tal Gabbai and Yehudah Fried said that “after endless examinations and hospitalizations in which our client has been examined from every possible angle, and when the court hearing the case has all the relevant information, the time has come to make a ruling and close this case without new opinions in the form of a panel of experts.”They said that the new panel would mean an “extension to an unknown date of proceedings in a way that will create a great deal of suffering for our client, who is in a severe mental state and receiving [anti-] psychotic drugs that are life-threatening. We will study the ruling and act in accordance with the tools provided under the law.”
