Text: Supreme Court Judge Cheshin Implies Disengagement Saved PM Sharon from Indictment
Excerpts;
…”For Barak, if the Knesset passes a law by a majority of a hundred to two, he can come and assert that the law is annulled. I think that is not a serious position.”
“Fight corruption with all your strength,” Cheshin urged his colleagues in his farewell speech three months ago. “Do not forsake the war day or night. It is a matter of life and death for us and for the state. Let us oversee them from the outside.” When the Movement for Quality Government petitioned the High Court of Justice, together with others, against Attorney General Menachem Mazuz in the wake of his decision two years ago to close the Greek island case against then-prime minister Ariel Sharon, seven justices sat on the panel. Six of them decided to reject the petitions; Cheshin alone wanted to issue an interim order and have the investigation proceed.
How did it come about that not one justice joined you in the Greek island case?
“I ask you, you tell me.”
I don’t know. Even in the majority opinion, Justice Mazza noted “puzzling matters” that effectively led to the conclusion you reached, so I have no good answer.
“Why not? That is an excellent answer. A pertinent answer.”
The justices met. You spoke, you tried to persuade the others. How did you end up as a minority of one?
“I do not examine the hearts and minds of others. I am not God. I am only a human being. It might be that because Mazuz was then a new attorney general they wanted to strengthen him. Everyone has his own guess. I can say only that when someone gets $600,000 and the promise of $2 million more for surfing the Internet, one has to be a fool to think that he really received the money for that work. I did not set out to be in the minority. But at that time the whole nation wanted an outcome in which Sharon would not stand trial, because of the disengagement plan. And if Sharon had stood trial, there would have been no disengagement. I am not saying that this is what the majority of the justices thought. Heaven forbid.”
If what you demonstrated in the case of the Greek island is judicial independence, then your comrades apparently displayed conformity.
“Heaven forbid, those are harsh words. It is a matter of worldview. I have no doubt that the justices were true to themselves.”