Would Ohana impact rule of law as public security minister? - analysis

The public security minister gets to appoint the chief of police and the chief gets to make ultimate decision about how the police handle probes of public figures.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Amir Ohana at a special cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights (photo credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)
Amir Ohana at a special cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights
(photo credit: AMMAR AWAD/REUTERS)
If reports are correct, Amir Ohana will move in the coming days from heading the Justice Ministry to becoming public security minister.
What impact would such an appointment have on the rule of law?
The public security minister gets to appoint the chief of police, and the inspector-general gets to make ultimate decisions about how the police handle probes of public figures. The minister also decides whether to extend the chief’s term beyond the minimum three years.
For example, conflict between outgoing Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and former insp.-gen. Roni Alsheich led to Alsheich leaving office after three years, even though there was no permanent replacement in place at the time.
This has led to Moti Cohen running the police as acting inspector-general since December 2018.
In addition, the public security minister is often the public face of the police, since even the inspector-general has limitations, as a bureaucrat, about what he can say in public.
Any criticism of the police by the public security minister can heavily impact their performance and morale.
Finally, the public security minister has significant influence over resources and financial support, or lack thereof, for different police initiatives.
Whether the minister using this leverage over the police is good or bad will depend on one’s politics and the specific police issue. But there is no denying that a creative minister can exploit that leverage.
All of this power would be in the hands of Ohana, who thrives on being a controversial figure.
Whereas Ohana’s predecessor as justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, was sometimes critical of the High Court of Justice and Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit for allegedly activist decisions regarding policy, she was always respectful of Mandelblit and the state prosecution arm.
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Shaked was always clear that while she hoped Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be acquitted, she believed Mandelblit’s approach was completely neutral and objective.
In contrast, before Ohana had even been in office for a short time, he already had said he might ignore some court orders and accused, without evidence, the state prosecution of preparing fake indictments against him to quiet his criticism.
Ohana proceeded to publicly fight Mandelblit over who would be temporary state attorney until a new government was formed, a battle that lasted months.
He also tried, unsuccessfully, to get State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman to probe Mandelblit over the 10-year-old closed Harpaz Affair.
Due to these and other positions, Ohana himself has come in for unprecedented attack from the legal establishment as a partisan actor on behalf of Netanyahu with little concern for the long-term impact on the justice system.
He has retorted that the prosecution is out of control and needs reform and greater oversight.
Ohana also already has taken some aim at the police.
By February, he had succeeded in having the cabinet establish a state commission to investigate the Police Investigation Department’s conduct, primarily using the Solomon Tekah case as justification for the move.
In February, the trial opened of a policeman for the negligent homicide of the Ethiopian-Israeli Tekah in June 2019.
Tekah’s killing shook the country and led to nationwide protests by the Ethiopian community over their perception of dangerous discrimination against them by police and racism against them generally.
The newly formed state commission summoned PID chief Keren Ben Menachem to a hearing to answer for the department’s controversial decision to prosecute the policeman who shot Tekah for mere negligent homicide as opposed to a more severe crime.
Ohana implied PID overly protects the police.
The cabinet approved the state commission despite Mandelblit’s objection. For months, Mandelblit had personally been conducting a special review of the case and of all prosecution-police issues relating to Ethiopians.
Mandelblit and his supporters implied that the cabinet acted out of partisan electoral considerations and sought to harm the prosecution in the Tekah case, perhaps viewing this as a way to retaliate against Mandelblit’s indictment of Netanyahu.
They claim the cabinet acted not really out of concern for the Ethiopian issue, which the attorney-general was already probing.
News reports leaking cabinet minutes named certain ministers as saying they wished they could be probing the entire prosecution apparatus.
The High Court eventually froze the state commission to allow the new government to address the issue.
There is already a special unit for probing the prosecution, headed by former judge David Rozen, who sent former prime minister Ehud Olmert to jail. Critics of the prosecution have mostly ignored the existence of Rozen’s unit.
Rozen has criticized the prosecution on a number of fronts. But he has implied that overall he trusts their neutrality, including in the Netanyahu cases – something that cabinet critics of the prosecution cannot accept.
Going forward, Ohana potentially could use his powers to probe or pressure the police in a variety of ways as a way to gain leverage.
At the same time, he has no direct power over police probes.
If a police chief decides he will not worry about ingratiating himself with the public security minister, just as Alsheich clearly decided, the minister has no authority to countermand his decisions regarding probes of public figures.
Further, as to Netanyahu, the police are no longer a factor.
The case is already at trial in the hands of the courts and the prosecution, so Ohana has no leverage.
It also will be interesting to see if incoming justice minister Avi Nissenkorn of Blue and White will try to counteract Ohana on rule-of-law issues.
Until now, Nissenkorn had refused public comment pending his swearing in later this week (neither he nor Ohana were willing to comment for this article).
But that could change by next week, and Ohana may have less influence over the public discourse regarding law enforcement once a political figure who is justice minister, like Nissenkorn, can respond.
So while Ohana’s impact may be far from clear, we can expect that some of the conflicts with law enforcement may not evaporate as he leaves the Justice Ministry as much as they may shift to the arena of the police.


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