Last update - 00:00 22/02/2007
Turkel: No rubber-stamp approval for Ganot as police chief
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent
The committee for approving senior public service appointments may disqualify Yaakov Ganot as the next police chief, the head of the panel told Haaretz, despite the fact that the panel approved his 2003 appointment as Prison Service Commissioner.
"I am not bound by the committee's previous decision," said retired judge Yaacov Turkel. "The circumstances were different then, first and foremost because he was contending for a different position."
According to Turkel, the committee will now examine the appointment of Ganot for police commissioner particularly carefully.
"The committee will surely examine the general circumstances that forced Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi to resign, and the need to make sure of the candidate's moral fiber, which is even greater today," Turkel told Haaretz.
Turkel said the committee would take into consideration the harsh criticism of Ganot made by the panel in 2003, when it was headed by retired judge Gavriel Bach, as well as its conclusion that "we cannot establish that the appointment is flawed to the extent that would justify rejecting the recommendation."
Turkel said that in the past he had instructed the committee to interpret the terms "blemish" and "moral stain" in a most general way, if it thought there was anything flawed in the candidate's character.
"Our discretion is very broad and we must make broad use of it. The committee must take everything into consideration," he said.
The High Court of Justice will Sunday hear three petitions against Ganot's appointment. Some of the petitions also demand that the committee convene to discuss and disqualify Ganot's appointment before the court rules on it.
The third petition, submitted by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel on Wednesday, says "the tremendous impact of the considerations against Ganot's appointment is considerably and clearly bigger than the considerations in favor of it."
Turkel insists on waiting for the High Court's ruling before convening the committee, but said his reasons are technical. Although Public Security Minister Avi Dichter's letter, requesting the committee to meet and approve Ganot's appointment, reached Turkel on Sunday, Turkel said he is still awaiting the arrival of several documents from Ganot and others.
The committee is supposed to study those documents before it summons Dichter, the prime minister and Ganot himself.