Courts reopen, return to routine: All signs Bibi trial full steam ahead

Probably the final sign that there would be no more delays was the swearing in of the government on Sunday, including Avi Nissenkorn as the new justice minister.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Israeli Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and Supreme court Justices arrive to a court session on petitions filed against the proposed government at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on May 3, 2020 (photo credit: YOSSI ZAMIR)
Israeli Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and Supreme court Justices arrive to a court session on petitions filed against the proposed government at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on May 3, 2020
(photo credit: YOSSI ZAMIR)
The courts got back to their routine on Sunday, ending the state of emergency after approximately two months, with all signs suggesting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial will start next week on May 24 as scheduled.
The trial was originally set for March 17 but was postponed only days before when the entire country went into coronavirus mode.
Probably the final sign that there would be no more delays was the swearing in of the government on Sunday, including Avi Nissenkorn as the new justice minister.
Though outgoing justice minister Amir Ohana, who is close to Netanyahu, had incentives to declare court emergencies to delay Netanyahu’s trial even beyond the coronavirus crisis, Nissenkorn of Blue and White has every incentive to let the case move forward.
A spokeswoman for the courts said the return to routine hearings appeared to have gone off without any significant incidents or difficulties.
In addition, The Jerusalem Post has learned that the probes of Shas Party leader Arye Deri and UTJ Party leader Ya'acov Litzman, long-paused due to the coronavirus, have started to move forward again.
Still, all has not completely returned to usual.
Anyone coming to a courthouse must don a mask, and there are strict limitations about how many persons can be in a courtroom at once in order to maintain social-distancing regulations.
There also may be some long-term changes to the frequency with which detainees are brought to the courthouse if their lawyers want to save them the trip or if the state convinces a judge that videoconferencing from the prison is sufficient.
A new bill on the issue will be taken up by the next Knesset.
But generally speaking, civil hearings, Labor Court hearings and a range of other court proceedings that had been postponed by the emergency declaration are back to usual.
Previously, a court spokeswoman had said one benefit of the emergency period was that many judges caught up regarding their backlog of writing decisions for cases they had already heard.
Regarding the emergency order issued in mid-March, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit ultimately said they had supported Ohana’s move.
By early April, the number of infected or quarantined judges and court staff had reached nearly 50.
Despite the emergency order, the High Court of Justice continued working overtime, policing the government’s various emergency orders for potential constitutional or human-rights violations.
The High Court also heard historic petitions regarding whether Netanyahu could form a government and whether the new government’s changes to the Basic Laws were constitutional.
Many criminal hearings had continued even during the emergency.
Criminal hearings cannot be postponed because a person’s very liberty is at stake, rather than just money, and there is special urgency to hold them as scheduled.
Accordingly, there were strong efforts to move forward with criminal trials, without much in terms of postponements, when the defendant was being held in detention until the end of the trial.
Where a hearing needed to be held in person, it still occurred. Where a hearing could move forward by agreement of all lawyers involved, and by video conference, the courts made a special dispensation to permit that.
Video conferences even were used to render verdicts and sentencing decisions in some cases.
After all of these efforts to move forward with emergent issues, the vast majority of court proceedings requiring hearings are being postponed until the coronavirus crisis passes.