Justice keeps suit vs. Halutz out of court for two years

Can a single High Court justice indefinitely delay a hearing on a petition? According to the regulations of the High Court of Justice, such a power is granted only to a panel of three justices or more. However, in reality, for two years Justice Asher Grunis has prevented a hearing on a petition by Yesh Gvul, an organization of Israel Defense Forces reservists who oppose service in the territories.

In September 2003, the group petitioned the High Court to open a criminal investigation against then air force chief Dan Halutz, now chief of staff, because of an order that he gave to assassinate Palestinian terrorist Salah Shehadeh by dropping a one-ton bomb on a residential neighborhood in Gaza in July 2002. The petition was submitted after the group failed to get then military advocate general Major General Menachem Finkelstein to open criminal proceedings against Halutz for the killing of 14 people, mostly children, during the attack on Shehadeh.

The anger of the petitioners was fanned by a statement Halutz made to Haaretz that when the bomb was dropped, all he felt was "a slight tremor in the wings of the plane."

Justice Grunis was on duty at the time the petition was submitted. Since then, delays have been caused by submission of, and decisions on, the state's requests to have more time in which to respond to the petitioners. In some cases, instead of making a ruling, Justice Grunis asks to "hear the postions of both sides."

Three months after the petition was first submitted, Grunis proposed that the parties freeze the proceedings until another petition could be heard - one that had been submitted in January 2002 by the Committee Against Torture, regarding Israel's policy of targeted assassinations. Yesh Gvul opposed the delay, arguing that the bombing might be a criminal act even if the policy was legal. Still, Grunis froze the proceedings.

A year ago, when Yesh Gvul found out that Halutz was going to be appointed deputy chief of staff, it submitted an urgent petition for a temporary injunction against the appointment. Grunis ruled that the matter required a separate petition, which was submitted and heard by a panel headed by Justice Edmond Levy. Afterward, he demanded an affidavit from Halutz, including a response to the statement he made in Haaretz. The panel ruled a few months later, in January 2005. While rejecting the petition against Halutz's appointment, the justices harshly criticized his statement, which they called "hair-raising." Meanwhile, the petition on the targeted assassinations was frozen after attorney Shai Nitzan argued that after the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, in which Israel agreed to stop these acts, the hearing could also be discontinued - a position the court accepted.

As a result of that ruling, lawyers for Yesh Gvul, Avigdor Feldman and Michael Sfard, reiterated their request that the petition against Halutz be reactivated, since it no longer was associated with the petition on the assassinations. However, the alleged foot-dragging continued, and the petitioners felt it necessary to take other measures and to submit a "request for a ruling."

"The process in the High Court is unsound even according to its own rules," Yesh Gvul leader Yoav Hess said.

When Grunis was asked about how long a justice may delay a ruling, and why he refused to pass the case on to a panel of justices, his response, through the High Court spokeswoman, was: "According to court procedure, the justice on duty continues dealing with a case until it is transferred to a panel."

	Justice Asher Grunis