Interfering with the police's work - Haaretz

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Thu., November 22, 2007 Kislev 12, 5768

Israel Time: 16:24 (EST+7)

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Interfering with the police's work

By Ze'ev Segal

Tags: Police, Avi Dichter

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter's call for an end to the investigations against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as reported in yesterday's Haaretz, constitutes blatant interference in the police's work. His clarifications on the radio afterward - that he was referring to the principle rather than to the probes now in progress - did nothing to blunt his initial statement.

Dichter is the minister in charge of the police. For him to address a matter pertaining to criminal investigations is problematic in itself and incompatible with the basic principles of the rule of law. One such principle is that the law enforcement agencies must be neutral and free of any political interference.

It is therefore customary to keep the police's criminal investigations separate from the minister in charge of the police, who is a politician. When the minister belongs to the same political party as the subject of a probe, as is true in this case, the minister must stay out of the issue completely. The public security minister is not supposed to receive any information about an investigation's timetable or proceedings. He is expected not to make any public statement, whether general or specific, about matters pertaining to police inquiries.

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Now that the attorney general has ordered a probe of the prime minister over the affair of the house on Cremieux Street, and in view of other possible investigations in the future, a problematic situation has arisen. Dichter will presumably not accede to MK Ophir Pines-Paz's demand that he resign following his statement. The prime minister, who can call the minister to order and even dismiss him, is unlikely to do anything. Yet the minister's statement hinders the police's work. In addition, it was made after the prime minister hosted the police's top brass and congratulated it on its work - itself a problematic matter when Olmert is expected to be questioned by the police soon.

As for Dichter's proposal that sitting prime ministers not be investigated, or at least not for alleged offenses committed before entering office, this contradicts the basic principle of equality before the law. Even the Basic Law on the President, which stipulates that an incumbent president may not be put on trial, does not say that he may not be questioned by the police.

The law on the president is special, because he is the head of state and symbolizes the state. It should not apply to the prime minister. The correct response to the suggestion that Olmert be granted immunity is to complete the investigation as swiftly as possible, and then decide whether he should be indicted.

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