Last update - 00:00 25/03/2007
Immunity and corruption
By Haaretz Editorial
Suspects in corruption cases have a new line of defense. After failing in their attempt to describe the investigations as 'persecution' and themselves as victims of excessive purism, the argument was made that the investigations into alleged corruption are paralyzing the country. Retired Judge Amnon Strassnov, whose intentions are surely pure but whose personal honesty has made him naive, took this dubious stance last week.
Strassnov proposes granting temporary immunity from investigation and indictment to the incumbent prime minister to facilitate government of the country without interference. Doing so would not only attract corrupt individuals into politics, in search of immunity; giving immunity to a serving prime minister could also interfere with the investigation of those surrounding him.
Most of the large number of investigations swirling around Olmert had their start in his home party, the Likud. In some of the investigations he is indirectly involved, in others his role is direct. The current investigations involve both wheat and chaff, important and less important, and sometimes it is the less corrupt who are punished because their cases are simpler and shorter. The overall trend is positive, and those naive and well-intentioned individuals must not stop the process, because the road to further corruption is paved by good intentions.
Those who tended to take lightly the political appointments affair, considering them a legitimate part of politics, can now appreciate - by connecting all the current investigations - the extent to which these appointments further corruption, institutionalize it and grant it protection. Only when Abraham Hirchson's hold on the National Workers' Organization loosened, only when the competition began over who would inherit his power to make appointments and control the funds, only then did the affairs related to him begin to surface. The power to make appointments is the power to direct the money to unacceptable directions and it is also the power to silence. Heads of state with immunity, however temporary, have unlimited power to corrupt.
We can hope that the next Knesset will have fewer members whose daily agenda are interrupted by police interrogations. Some MKs may be hurt unfairly, a promising career stalled by exaggerated suspicions. Perhaps those who have been cleared will be the stronger for the experience. The cleaning-out process sometimes seems McCarthyite, but in contrast to that period it is being carried out in a professional, non-political manner on the basis of evidence and testimony.
The real problem is the duration of the investigations and the entire legal process. What is needed is not immunity for the prime minister but rather a significant increase in law enforcement personnel and resources. Adding investigators, attorneys and judges, and perhaps establishing an additional police department - a national investigation department, a sort of Israeli FBI, to expedite cooperation between investigators and prosecutors, would save time.
The road to justice today is long and exhausting. Years pass between a suspicion in a state comptroller's report and a verdict. The fear is not a paralysis of government but rather paralysis of the police investigation units, causing them to collapse under the load and neglect important cases. A police force that is weak in white-collar investigations is convenient for politicians, but it is contrary to public interest.