Shaked: State prosecutors ignoring instruction to work with oversight czar ‘unwise'

Union instructed state prosecutors to boycott the oversight body despite orders from Shaked and Weinstein to cooperate with it.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Updated: NOVEMBER 24, 2015 05:07
Ayelet Shaked, nouvelle ministre de la Justice (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Ayelet Shaked, nouvelle ministre de la Justice
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said on Monday that if it turns out to be true that the Union of State Prosecutors has told all state prosecutors to ignore her and Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein’s instruction to work with the oversight czar pending a reconfiguration of the oversight body that this would be a “bullying and unwise step, extremely irrational and arrogant.”
Earlier Monday, Ynet reported that the union had instructed state prosecutors to boycott the oversight body despite orders from Shaked and Weinstein to cooperate with it.
Shaked added that in any case, “a proposed bill based on the principles suggested by [former Supreme Court justice Eliezer] Goldberg will be submitted in the coming weeks.”
On October 8, Goldberg surprised the legal establishment by recommending extending the authority of the new Justice Ministry oversight czar over the state prosecution to include the attorney-general.
Goldberg’s was appointed by Shaked in June as a mediator accepted by the oversight czar and former judge Hila Gristol, Weinstein (who helped spearhead the new oversight body) and the union, to resolve a dispute over oversight.
The state prosecutors had been striking on-and-off for months against the new body, claiming it would help politicians pressure them not to prosecute corruption and generally reduce their independence and impartiality.
A union of state prosecutors had been prepared to accept general criticism of particular district attorney’s offices, but not specific criticisms of individual prosecutors.
The strikes meant a refusal by rank and file state prosecutors to cooperate with the body as it performed its oversight and filed its first reports, including its most recent one in April.
Goldberg’s report did propose a compromise to resolve the dispute between Gristol and the state prosecutors; he supported preserving Gristol’s office and its general powers, but suggested new limits to those powers especially regarding complaints against individual prosecutors.
He also said that Gristol’s office should be anchored in legislation and not left as a body that only exists on the basis of a cabinet decision.