By Ben Shaul

June 07, 2007:

In the fundamental petition it was claimed that this practice is a wrong one, carried out with no authority and should be canceled.

For years, the police hand over to the prosecution staff and to the Attorney General of Israel, in the end of each investigation, a recommendation to put or not to put on trial the suspect being investigated by it.

According to the petitioner, this practice is wrong and being carried out without an authority, damages the suspect's presumption of innocent since it positioned him as guilty to begin with and before the trial has began, narrows the consideration of the prosecutor that will definitely be influenced by this recommendation to put or not to put on trial, and generally damages the suspect's rights and its good name.

Recently, in order to bypass this practice and the Attorney General of Israel's regulations forbidding the publication of any finding or conclusion that from the investigation carried out by the police, the police begins to hand over the prosecution staff "Investigation summary" , which in it, it determines whether the evidence in that case crystallizes adequate base to put on trial. In the petition, written by Shurat HaDin Chairwoman, Attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, it states that there is no difference between an "Investigation summary" and a recommendation. Both determine the police's conclusion whether there is a place to put the suspect on trial or not. Therefore, both are in the form of "recommendation". Due to that, both should be canceled. According to Attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner "no one has authorized the police to recommend whether there is a place to put the suspect on trial or not. The prosecution stuff is the only responsible body authorized to do so and the police has no place to interfere. Police has more than enough responsibilities that it already fail to fulfill. It is better that the police will concentrate all of it efforts in these responsibilities and leave the recommendation to the responsible body authorized to do so.

Several days ago, the police gave the district attorney's office a recommendation to put on trial Mr. Jeck Matsa, the head of Israel Tax Authority; Mrs. Shula Zakan, Prime Minister's head secretary; Business man, Yoram Karashi in the Tax Authority affair.

The National Fraud Unit has finished the investigation in the Tax Authority affair.

It was reported by the police that the findings based the suspicion that two business men, accountant Kobi Ben Gur and Yoram Karashi, have put heavy impact in the beginning of 2006 to personally promote Mr. Jeck Matsa for the position of the head of the Israel Tax Authority. Add to that, according to this suspicion, the used Mr. Matsa and Mrs. Zakan to promote their cronies to key positions in the Israel Tax Authority.