The Mahash Law is a coup law that threatens the purity of the elections

Israel is entering one of the most decisive and fateful periods in its history. The upcoming election campaign will take place within a polarized society and is expected to be fraught with tension and violence. Just this week, we saw the door of the Channel 12 newsroom shattered by an act of sabotage, and a threatening letter against journalists was left at the scene. A few weeks ago, the home of the Chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Deputy Supreme Court President Solberg, was attacked by rioters, causing damage to the house.

Therefore, to get through the elections safely, there is also a need for a police force that is independent of political pressure, fair, and enforces the law in a uniform and determined manner. During the election period, the police must make a special effort to allow citizens to exercise their freedom of political expression, to demonstrate, to gather for election rallies, and to protect protesters from thugs and violence from the other side of the political map. The police must exercise great restraint in enforcing the law during the election period to avoid causing unnecessary escalation, which in itself can influence the election results. In addition, the police will also have to thwart acts of bullying and disruption on election day itself, and protect the freedom of movement and personal safety of voters on their way to the polls. This requires a completely independent police force, which is not subject to the influence of political actors competing in the elections, and which operates professionally and without political bias.

A political police force, whose officers feel they have immunity from prosecution, can serve as a clear tool for rigging elections. From false arrests, unjustified heating up of the field, political investigations, leaking sensitive information, through harassment of parties and candidates, preventing demonstrations and gatherings and suppressing messages against the government, to ignoring attempts to disrupt election day, imposing movement restrictions, or over-policing at certain polling stations in a way that suppresses voting.

Even before the law to subordinate the Department for the Investigation of Police Officers (Mahash) to the Minister of Justice, which was finally approved recently in the Knesset, a heavy shadow was already cast over the independence of the police. The public's trust in the police is at a low point after 4 years in which the responsible minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, systematically worked to politicize the police, in accordance with his political agenda, while misusing his powers in overseeing the police and appointing officers. The minister has proven time and again that he meddles in operational activity and tries to steer the police from the straight path to serve his political goals. Therefore, the Attorney General even believes that there is no choice but to remove him from his position — a step reserved for extreme cases, since all attempts to reach a framework with the minister that would prevent politicization have failed.

To the politicization of the police over the last four years, the new Mahash law has now been added. This is a law that is an integral part of the judicial coup, as its purpose, like the other coup laws, is to take over an important independent body intended to prevent the abuse of government power, and in this case — an investigative body. Subordinating Mahash to politicians is done in several ways: subordinating Mahash to the Ministry of Justice, which gives the minister great influence over Mahash and the ability to influence it, and by subordinating the director of Mahash, as well as the person in charge of coordination between Mahash and the State Attorney's Office, to selection and dismissal by a committee over which the Minister of Justice will have decisive influence, as he is involved in appointing most of its members. The director of Mahash will also not have supervision and will be even more independent than the State Attorney, who is subject to the Attorney General.

Undermining a fundamental principle through these mechanisms creates a powerful but not independent investigative body that is subject to heavy political influence. This is truly undermining the fundamental principle of separation between politics and investigative and law enforcement powers, and a dangerous precedent that, if not stopped, will be attempted to be applied to all law enforcement agencies. This investigative body is the factor that is supposed to ensure that the police officers, who are supposed to ensure the purity of the elections, refrain from committing offenses or using severe violence against citizens, and in various circumstances it will also be able to investigate citizens, lawyers, journalists, and other factors that are not police officers, if a police officer is involved in the offense.

The law itself will enter into force shortly after the elections, but the tender for selecting the head of Mahash has already been launched. If an interim order freezing the law is not issued, it will have an immediate effect on the conduct of the police already in the coming period, the election period. First, the activity of Mahash in the next six months at least is expected to be almost paralyzed due to the organizational change. This is a dramatic change just before the elections, which is added to the fact that the head of Mahash in recent years has finished her role and currently the department is managed by a temporary acting official. The Minister of Justice has an incentive to delay all sensitive investigations until the day after the law enters into force and the takeover of Mahash is completed, so it is likely that they will not allow the unit to operate as usual in the meantime. Baruch Kra reported on Channel 13 that the Ministry of Justice is already blocking technology for cracking phones for Mahash.

More seriously, the police officers will feel that the motivation to investigate them will be determined according to political interests, and that if they serve the minister's interest, they will receive immunity from prosecution in the new Mahash, and complaints against them will be shelved. This will have an immediate effect on their conduct and their adherence to the law. In addition, the new law will have a chilling effect on journalists, whose role is to educate the public about what is happening, among other things from sources within the police. Under the new law, those journalists could find themselves pursued by a political and biased investigative body because of important information they published.

Therefore, it is important that at the first stage, the Supreme Court judges freeze the entry into force of the law with an interim order, and prevent the disruption of Mahash's work during the election period. After that, the law should be repealed in its entirety. It is also to be hoped that if a new government is formed after the elections, it will in any case work to repeal this law and instead of weakening Mahash and subordinating it to politicians, will take care to anchor its independence in law and strengthen its capabilities.

Professor Yaniv Roznai is a co-academic director at the Rubinstein Center for Constitutional Challenges at Reichman University. Attorney Gil Gan-Mor is the director of the opinion project at the Rubinstein Center for Constitutional Challenges at Reichman University.