Backers say legislation equips police with tools to fight organized crime; expert warns it risks ‘harsh infringements of very basic human rights’
A controversial bill being prepared for an initial vote in the Knesset aims to allow district court judges to impose restrictions on citizens’ freedom of movement and expression on the basis of secret evidence “in order to prevent serious damage to a person’s safety or property.”
The bill would allow the police to deviate from the prevailing rules of evidence in presentations to the court, which its drafters admitted was “an unusual tool in which a judicial order is used to violate the rights of an individual, due to a forward-looking concern and in the absence of sufficient incriminating evidence regarding acts attributed to him in the past.”
Among the options given to judges by the law are limiting a suspect’s time outside their home, prohibiting them from traveling to certain locations or communicating with certain people, stopping them from driving, and prohibiting travel abroad.
Moreover, police would be allowed to check the residences or vehicles of those subject to such orders, access their computers or even search their bodies.
“I have no problem giving the court the authority to issue an order that restricts the movement of a man who belongs to a criminal organization,” Yisrael Beytenu MK Evgeny Sova, one of the legislation’s backers, told The Times of Israel this week.
“The purpose of the law is to provide tools to the police with the approval of the court in order to limit the activity of a person for whom there is clear intelligence of an intention to commit serious crimes” and “is supposed to enable an effective war against criminal organizations” that the police have so far been unable to handle, he added.
Asked if he believed there was any risk of the law being abused, Sova emphatically rejected the possibility.
“Not a chance. Because the police will be obliged to present the judge material that indicates a serious concern [that a suspect] belongs to a criminal organization,” he stated.
“The judge is not deciding on a conviction. He is issuing a restraining order. This order also has a limited period. There are conditions, but it is another tool that should help prevent crime. I trust the judges. That’s why I don’t see a concern here that someone might get hurt. The police will not come to court or ask for a restraining order for someone who was not at all known and not connected to the underworld,” he said.
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