When I was a law student at Tel Aviv University many years ago, one of my professors was Ze'ev Zeltner, a former president of the Tel Aviv District Court.
Another student in that class was Amnon Abramovich, who would later became a senior pundit and the inventor of giving media darlings the kid-glove treatment.
Abramovich said on Monday that it would be wrong for Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit to announce a intention to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so close to an election. Perhaps the course we took together influenced him.
The course began with a long explanation about Lady Justice, who is often portrayed with a blindfold, holding scales in one hand and a sword in the other.
Zeltner explained that justice should be blind and ignore anything that is not material to the case, so long as doing so does not keep justice from being done. In other words, being right isn't enough - you also have to be smart.
Israel's law enforcement agencies are in a state of crisis. Those in charge of our justice system have created the impression that the Israel Police, the State Attorney's Office and the media are colluding to unseat Netanyahu. You can deny it until the cows come home, but the impression will not go away.
Yes, Mendelblit has every right to announce his intention to indict Netanyahu pending a pre-indictment hearing. He doesn't need to consult anyone.
But making such a decision so close to an election would create bad optics, because there would not be enough time to complete the hearing before Israelis went to the polls. If Mendelblit makes the decision now, rather than wait until the votes are counted, he would confirm what many Israeli think – that he is out to get Netanyahu.
Why? Because if a pre-indictment hearing is announced, the election itself will turn into a trial, possibly damaging due process. In fact, Netanyahu has already faced a de facto trial on the public airwaves thanks to biased pundits, professional leakers (including some in the Attorney General's office), obsessive demonstrators and people who are pathologically against Netanyahu. Simply put, the Left will use a pre-indictment hearing as a political noose from which to hang Netanyahu in the public square.
Netanyahu may very well emerge victorious from a pre-indictment hearing, if he convinces Mendelblit that the allegations against him are baseless.
But Mendelblit would be making a colossal mistake if he announces the hearing before the election. The world will not come to an end if he waits a few months and lets Israelis have a fair election.
At the end of the day, justice must be seen, not just served. Perhaps Mendelblit should take the blindfold off, look around, and understand the public consequences of announcing a pre-indictment hearing so close to the election.
We have only one judiciary, and we must not jeopardize its integrity just because someone is in a rush.
