The committee was created due to the State Comptroller’s criticism recommends removing the Police Internal Investigations Unit from the control of the Prosecutor’s Office.
The committee for inspecting the Police Internal Investigations Department, which was created following strong criticism of the Department’s performance by the State Comptroller, submitted its conclusions on Monday to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice Yariv Levin.
The committee’s central conclusion is an unequivocal recommendation to remove the Department from the framework of the State Prosecutor’s Office and to establish it as an independent Department.
Justice Minister Levin responded: “The issue of the Internal Investigations Department and its subordination to the Prosecutor’s Office has raised much criticism over the years, but no one dared to try to fundamentally deal with the problem. The current state, in which the Internal Investigations Department is subordinate to the Prosecutor’s Office but in charge of investigating police officers, is flawed at its base. The Internal Investigations Department has become part of the system that it itself is supposed to audit, which has led to a long series of cover-ups and selective and offensive enforcement.”
Levin welcomed the committee’s conclusions. “Today, I received the committee’s conclusions, which show a long list of systematic-institutional and functional-operational flaws in the Internal Investigations Department’s work. I welcome the fundamental decision that the Internal Investigations Department must be removed from the subordination of the Prosecutor’s Office, which I have believed for years was absurd and needed to be fixed.”
The committee detailed a list of additional recommendations, among other things, regarding the classification of the Internal Investigations Department as the central body to deal with complaints against police officers.
The Justice Minister concluded: “I intend to quickly study the detailed report that was submitted to me, and to work to implement its main points.”
