The latest Pegasus scandal and the issue of whether the police were spying on civilians, including the Netanyahu family, his associates and many others, raise a simple question: who will investigate the police and prosecution? Will the Justice investigate itself? Will Deputy Attorney General Amit Merri will decide, on the ministry's behalf, whether the State Attorney's Office abused its power or partnered with the police in alleged criminal activity? Or will the Police Internal Investigations Department do that?
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Moreover, how can we trust the government and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to resolve this issue when both are in the judiciary's debt for having created the circumstances that allowed them to come to power? Furthermore, pointing the finger at the State Attorney's Office or the Attorney General's Office could undermine the foundation on which the government rests. And what is to convince us that Merri won't be used to cover up any alleged wrongdoing to allow the government to survive?
What has really been exposed here is a serious peril to Israeli democracy in the wake of former Chief Justice Aharon Barak's judicial revolution, which began in the 1990s, and this threat outweighs any of the gravest political-legal cases in Israel's history.
Can the legal system and the attorney general be trusted when, as one of his last acts in office, former Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit sought to cover up the spyware scandal by saying the investigation should only span the past two years and exclude former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's case?
Can the Justice Ministry – in its current situation – be trusted when not too long ago former State Attorney Shai Nitzan, Barak's protégé, rendered the Police Internal Investigation Department hollow of jurisdiction when they answered to him?
How can an entity like the State Attorney's Office be trusted to investigate itself or the police when so many dark clouds loom over it over past suspected improprieties?
The current predicament is that the justice minister either ostensibly fears the State Attorney's Office or owes it his current political status. How did we get here? Basically, this is not a personal problem, but a structural one and it is rooted in the unstoppable magnification of the power of jurists, and especially the attorney general, the state prosecutors, and the Supreme Court.
The judicial revolution Barak led unfolded gradually, slowly gaining power in recent decades until it created a predatory political machine. Its aggression is not a mere malfunction, but is structural to Barak's venture: it is intended to deter legislators from repairing the damages done by the jurists' takeover and the latter's damage in coming into full view in the current crisis.
It is no coincidence that the lawyers in the State Attorney's Office have been protesting against the "conspiracy" to appoint a body to evaluate their work. They were the wind beneath Nitzan's wings when he sought to curtail the authority of the SAO's comptroller to the point of rendering it completely toothless.
It is no coincidence that Nitzan also tried to take over the National Center of Forensic Medicine – another factor that could bridle the power of the State Attorney's Office. The power created by Barak sought exclusivity and achieved it. As a result of Barak's "success," the State Attorney's Office is destined for corruption, in order to preserve its power or see profit, and we have nowhere to turn to investigate such suspicions.
Even if the government or the Supreme Court are forced to appoint a commission of inquiry to investigate the police Pegasus scandal, its members would be loyal to the power structure that created the problem in the first place – Barak's judicial coup – and they would defend the State Attorney's Office.
What this situation requires is an out-of-the-box constitutional solution, such as the nomination of a special, independent counsel to investigate this affair.
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