Last update - 00:00 01/01/2007
Knesset cmte. nixes publishing polls after Fri. before elections
By Ruth Sinai and Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondents
The Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee on Monday approved a bill to amend the elections law to forbid any new voters polls from being published after the Friday before elections.
Following committee approval, the bill will now be moved for a vote in the second and third reading in the Knesset plenum.
The bill was raised at the initiative of MK Yitzhak Levi (Mafdal), Ran Cohen (Meretz), Colette Avital (Labor) and Yoel Hasson (Kadima). The original bills on the polls had called to make the cut off date for polls two or three weeks before voting. Currently, results of new surveys can be released up to a day before the polls open.
Media would be allowed to print results of surveys who results were already published prior to the cut off date. An explicit explanation must accompany the results to clarify that they were already published, so as not sway public opinion on voting day.
Committee chairman Menachem Ben Sasson, who has opposed amending the law since the bill was first raised, voted in favor of the bill at Monday's meeting. He had initially opposed restricting the publication of poll results because he said it would take information away from entitled voters. He said Monday that he now supported the bill because the cut off date was close enough to voting day to give the public the information it deserves.
Panel okays bill calling for video testimonies in court
A bill that would allow remand extension hearings to be held through video conference passed its first reading Monday in the Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee.
The bill was passed with eight members of the committee voting in favor and one opposing. Most of the committee members were absent from the hearing.
Public Security Minister Avi Dichter attended the hearing and voiced support for the bill, noting the success of visual technology in the legal process in various countries including Australia, the United States, and Canada.
The bill would implement an 18-month pilot plan to test the method of video conferencing. During this time, video conferences would be held during hearings of remand extension with full consent of the suspect. Only suspects over the age of 18 with legal representation, and suspects who have not yet been indicted, would be able to participate.
The bill would authorize the justice minister to declare one of the prison cells as a "court house" so that whatever the suspect testifies in the declared cell would be considered formal testimony.
Currently, detained suspects in the Abu Kabir detention center are taken to the court house on Weizman Street in Tel Aviv. The transfer is done with tight escort, for fear of suspects escaping.
The bill has become especially relevant following the escape of serial rapist Benny Sela when he was taken to a court hearing. The initiative has received overwhelming support from the police force. Judge Edna Bekenstein, president of Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, has also endorsed the initiative for the past year and a half.
In a recent hearing, Bekenstein maintained that video conferencing would allow "the arrest to be fully used for investigative purposes, and would not waste time with traveling to and from court hearings." Therefore, the video conferencing is worthwhile "also for the suspects themselves."
However, the Israel Bar Association, which opposes the plan, finds Bekenstein's stance to be unconvincing. What bothers the lawyers is the forced separation between the lawyer and his client- they would be able to communicate through a secured phone line, but would not be able to whisper to each other throughout the interrogation. Furthermore, the lawyers are concerned about the lack of means of communication between the suspect and the judge.
"The video conference harms the entire criminal process," said attorney Baumbach, head of the Tel Aviv district of the Israel Bar Association. "The same magic box which is called 'the signs of truth,' which the court uses in order to determine who to believe, will dissipate the moment the method of video conferencing is implemented."
Baumbach said that Sela's escape should not influence the method of detaining suspects in Israel.