High Court weighs ministerial conflicts of interest in choosing criminal investigation oversight

The High Court of Justice convened all 11 Supreme Court justices on Sunday to examine whether the justice minister can choose who oversees a criminal investigation when conflicts of interest prevent senior law-enforcement officials from supervising it.The hearing focused on how to resolve that problem without giving politicians influence over the investigation. It arose from last year's ruling allowing Justice Minister Yariv Levin to appoint an outside supervisor for the investigation into former military advocate-general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.That investigation concerned the leak of footage from the Sde Teiman detention facility and suspected obstruction of efforts to establish who was responsible. The dispute over supervision arose because senior civilian law-enforcement officials had been involved in reviewing the earlier examination of the leak and could be called as witnesses.Supreme Court President Isaac Amit stressed that Sunday's hearing would set rules for future cases, not decide who should supervise the Tomer-Yerushalmi investigation.The court examined two questions: Does a conflict of interest involving senior prosecutors also prevent their colleagues from overseeing a case? And if supervision must move outside the prosecution, can the justice minister choose the replacement?For prosecutors challenging the earlier ruling, allowing a politician to make that choice risks compromising the investigation's independence. Several justices pressed the other side of the problem: whether officials could independently oversee an investigation involving their own superiors.The…