The High Court of Justice on Sunday signaled that it will quickly resolve the dispute between Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and Justice Minister Yariv Levin over who will probe former IDF chief lawyer Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi’s leak of a video relating to one of the Sde Teiman Palestinian prisoner abuse trials.
Moderate conservative justices Yael Willner and Gila Canfy Steinitz, along with strongly conservative justice Alex Stein, issued an order on Sunday morning that both sides immediately produce their core and most in-depth arguments by 8:00 p.m. that night.
Further, the three justices issued a conditional order in the case that both sides would need to waive their standard procedural objections to having to detail their more substantive arguments, noting the imperative of the high stakes involved and hinting also at the need to resolve the issue to put to bed much of the media frenzy surrounding the case.
Normally, it takes months for the High Court to reach this point in a case, and the petitions and basic positions of the various sides were only filed and released late Thursday, when Baharav-Miara agreed that someone other than her would need to probe the case.
Even in emergency cases, it often takes weeks to reach this point. But with the Tomer-Yerushalmi case shaking the country and the probe already in high gear, the High Court will likely try to resolve the issue of who manages the case within days, or not much longer.
Baharav-Miara has said the state prosecution will take over the case from her since she was involved in probing Tomer-Yerushalmi and failed to catch the former IDF chief lawyer’s initial cover-up of her leak of the video. This involvement in the original case could lead to her being called as a witness and, in any case, seems to show that she did not understand the case properly.
All of this would mean top state prosecutor Amit Eisman would manage the case.
In contrast, Levin tried to appoint the Judicial Complaints Investigator and former judge Asher Kula.
Baharav-Miara and the state prosecution view Kula as a front for Levin to try to harm the legal establishment, having nothing to do with Tomer-Yerushalmi per se.
Kula emphasized he has “no personal interest in the matter” and said he would fully accept the court’s final decision.
He wrote, "It is obvious that when the aforementioned conditional order was issued, and out of caution and respect for the High Court’s decision, I refrained and will continue to refrain from acting on the matter until the High Court’s final decision.”
Levin has led the charge to fire Baharav-Miara for much of this year, only to be stopped by the High Court.
Absent special circumstances, Baharav-Miara's term runs from early 2022 to early 2028.
Leaked video of IDF abuse to be presented as evidence
According to the indictment in the Sde Teiman case against five IDF soldiers, they took part in different aspects of beating a Palestinian detainee in the summer of 2014 and breaking several of his ribs, as well as shoving an object up his anus.
The video is expected to be presented at trial, but it is illegal for law enforcement to leak such evidentiary material before trial, as Tomer-Yerushalmi has admitted doing.
TPS contributed to this report.