Overview
- The High Court annulled Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s selection of Judiciary Ombudsman Asher Kula and ruled the ombudsman’s office cannot take the role.
- The ruling authorizes Levin to transfer investigative oversight to an external state official due to exceptional circumstances in which the attorney general and state attorney may be witnesses.
- Justices emphasized the decision permits only indirect ministerial involvement limited to choosing the overseer, with no ongoing connection once powers are transferred.
- The court set qualifications requiring a senior jurist with criminal-law credentials, free of political influence and personal interests, comparable to a senior state prosecutor.
- The probe concerns the leak of a video of alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee and involves former IDF senior legal adviser Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi and other MAG officials, and the court rejected the attorney general’s proposal to tap a retired Supreme Court justice.