Last update - 01:17 20/04/2007
Court: Winograd must release testimonies
By Yuval Yoaz
The Winograd Committee will release the partial testimonies of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former chief of staff Dan Halutz on the Lebanon war no more than two weeks after issuing its interim report at the end of April, the High Court of Justice ruled yesterday.
However, the court advised the committee to release the testimonies as soon as possible, "even sooner than two weeks" after submitting the report to the cabinet.
"We reiterate our opinion, that the committee would be wise to publish the testimonies as closely as possible to the release of the interim report, before the two weeks have passed," wrote the justices, given previous delays which "were not justified."
The five-justice panel, headed by Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, unanimously approved MK Zahava Gal-On's request to issue a court order obligating the committee to publish the testimonies, but accepted the schedule proposed by the committee on Sunday.
Beinisch criticized the committee's conduct in view of the High Court's ruling two months ago to release the testimonies.
"The committee's arguments that the verdict was not sufficiently clear are surprising. Needless to say the committee's changing the position it had presented previously, in a way that undermines this court's verdict, cannot be accepted," Beinisch said.
She said the primary reason the court did not instruct the committee to immediately release the testimonies was to avoid a further delay in the release of the interim report.
Beinisch stressed that releasing the testimony after the interim report would not cause any significant harm to "the public's ability to critique the committee's work and conclusions."
Justice Ayala Procaccia wrote as the sole dissenting opinion that the Winograd Committee should immediately publish all testimonies that are ready for release, including those of Olmert, Peretz and Halutz.
Procaccia emphasized that the committee should have released the testimonies a long time ago, but did not do so, and therefore "strayed from judicial instructions ... without any justification."
Gal-On had said prior to the ruling that "it is of critical importance that the protocols be released before the interim report is presented, in order to allow for false testimony to be refuted."