No court will help
Gil Bringer testifies in the trial of MK David Bitan and analyzes the inseparable connection between law and politics in Israel. He describes the procedure prohibiting candidate judges from meeting with politicians, and shows how it was not actually respected. Bringer links the Elor Azaria affair, the Yom Kippur prayer with separation, and the Netanyahu trial to demonstrate how the public context affects legal proceedings.
Gil Bringer, a former advisor to Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, testified this week in the trial of MK David Bitan at the Lod District Court. Bringer was summoned as a defense witness in the trial that has been ongoing for two and a half years against Bitan. In his testimony, he addressed the prosecution's claim that Bitan's meeting with a candidate for the position of Qadi was improper, relying on a 2017 procedure by the late Supreme Court President Miriam Naor, which prohibited sitting judges who are candidates for promotion from meeting with members of Knesset or ministers who are members of the Judicial Selection Committee. Bringer argues that the procedure was never actually respected, and describes how he was forced to arrange secret meetings between candidate judges and politicians in hiding places, including an apartment in Ramat Gan with keys in the electrical cabinet. He analyzes the inseparable connection between law and politics in Israel, citing three contemporary examples: the Yom Kippur prayer with separation at Gan Meir in Tel Aviv, which went from controversial to accepted within three years; President Isaac Herzog's decision regarding Elor Azaria, which differs from previous decisions; and the historical irony in the Netanyahu trial, where the prosecution now seeks to bring Avichai Mandelblit, who filed the indictment, as a defense witness close to the elections. Bringer concludes that the attempt to separate law from politics is fundamentally flawed, as law carries a political, social, and cultural role.