Slippery Slope

A defendant’s right to receive intelligence information related to his case would be significantly restricted under a bill being promoted by Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein. Weinstein, supported by Minister of Justice Yaakov Ne’eman, wants to make it legal to withhold almost any intelligence information related to his case from the defendant.

Two Palestinians, Mo’atassem Tamimi, 15, and Udai Tamimi, 20 years of age, claim that interrogators have used violence against them to make them give a testimony which would incriminate Bassem Tamimi, a Palestinian activist who is being tried on charges of organizing protests and riots.

The annual report of the Military Courts indicates that the military appeals court at the Ofer base in the West Bank, is being significantly in favor of the prosecution’s appeals, and accepts twice as many of them compared to the defense’s appeals. Another fact which stands out from the report is that the rate of convictions in military courts in the West Bank is 99.76%.

(Hebrew)

The Ministry of Justice is working on a proposed law that would exempt material in the hands of the police and the prosecution from being seen as “investigative material” which they would have to give the defendant, if it had been obtained within the framework of the investigation of other crimes, which the defendant was not actually accused of. Currently, all investigative material pertaining to a defendant must be conveyed to that defendant.