Menachem Mazuz

Menachem Mazuz was born on April 30, 1955, in Djerba, Tunisia, into a large family described by different sources as having nine or ten children. His father was a rabbi who also owned a shop selling religious articles.[1][3] The family immigrated to Israel when Mazuz was about one year old and settled in Netivot, a development town in the Negev.[3] He completed his secondary education at the Marom Zion religious high school in Jerusalem and then served in the Israel Defense Forces Armored Corps.[3]

Mazuz initially enrolled at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to study medicine before changing course and pursuing law.[9] He completed his legal studies magna cum laude, specializing in public and administrative law.[10][9] He clerked in the High Court of Justice department of the State Attorney's Office, which processes petitions to the Supreme Court, and also interned with Supreme Court justices.[10][9] He received his law license in 1981.[10]

After receiving his law license, Mazuz worked on criminal and civil matters at the State Attorney's Office.[10] He later headed its High Court of Justice Department, which handles petitions to the Supreme Court.[9] From 1991 or 1992 until 1995, he served as a legal adviser and member of the Israeli negotiating delegation in talks with the Palestinians and Jordanians, beginning with the Madrid Conference and continuing through the Oslo period.[10][9] He headed the legal team that negotiated the Gaza and interim agreements with the Palestinians.[10]

Sources differ on whether Mazuz became Deputy Attorney General in 1994 or 1995.[10][9] He served under Attorneys General Michael Ben-Yair and Elyakim Rubinstein. His portfolio covered military and security matters related to Israeli-Palestinian relations, international peace agreements, the Population Registry, and local-council planning and building.[10] He played a leading role in amendments to the General Security Law concerning the status, authority, and supervision of Israel's intelligence community, and initiated legislative work concerning the Court Law that contributed to judicial reform.[10]

The government approved Mazuz as Attorney General to succeed Rubinstein, with Justice Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid selecting him from three candidates approved by the Bach Committee.[9] The appointment received twenty votes in favor. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not participate because of the appearance that they might influence investigations involving them. Minister Benny Elon abstained, citing a 1991 legal opinion by Mazuz that described the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — as occupied.[9] Mazuz was due to take office on February 1, 2004, although sources variously date his appointment to January or February 2004; all place his tenure in 2004–2010.[1][10]

As attorney general, Mazuz reorganized the office to create a clear separation between the prosecutorial function and the political system.[10] In his first year, he reviewed traditional government positions across several fields, emphasizing alternative methods of law enforcement, stricter limits on connections between elected officials and the bodies that elect them, and an egalitarian approach to same-sex couples with respect to social and property rights.[10]

He introduced reforms in the appointment and supervision of civil servants and in budget allocations for political parties, and established a state agency to monitor and supervise the Planning and Construction Law.[10] His decisions relating to the security fence between Israel and Judea and Samaria emphasized, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, the state's obligation to recognize human rights and international legal principles.[10] Before assuming the attorney general's post, Mazuz had also written legal commentary on judicial reform, and his work on the General Security Law helped shape the legal framework governing Israel's intelligence community.[10]

Mazuz's tenure as attorney general included investigations and prosecutions involving senior public figures, among them Ehud Olmert, Moshe Katsav, Avraham Hirschson, Tzachi Hanegbi, Shlomo Benizri, and Omri Sharon. Early in his term, he also decided not to indict Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the Greek Island affair.[3]

In that affair, businessman David Appel was suspected of bribing senior officials in connection with plans to purchase the Greek island of Patroklos and develop a vacation village there. Suspicion also attached to Ariel Sharon as an alleged recipient of a bribe and his son Gilad as an alleged intermediary.[6] On June 16, 2004, Mazuz announced that he was closing the file against Ariel and Gilad Sharon, rejecting State Attorney Edna Arbel's recommendation to indict Ariel Sharon. He stated that "the evidentiary material suffers from defects regarding every aspect of the offense, and does not form a coherent structure that can stand in its own right," concluding that the evidence was not strong enough to establish a reasonable possibility of conviction.[6]

On August 19, 2004, the Supreme Court rejected petitions against that decision by a six-to-one majority, with Justice Mishael Cheshin dissenting.[6] On February 17, 2005, Mazuz announced that he was also closing the file against Sharon in the separate "Straw-Companies affair."[6]

On January 23, 2007, Mazuz notified President Moshe Katsav that he intended to indict him, subject to a hearing, for rape and other sexual offenses involving women who had worked under him.[4][11] Mazuz and State Prosecutor Eran Shendar determined that the evidence supported charges of rape and coerced indecent acts in the case of one complainant. Mazuz separately decided not to pursue wiretapping and clemency-related charges for lack of sufficient evidence.[11] Police had recommended an indictment in October 2006 on charges including rape, sexual harassment, and obstruction of justice; Katsav denied the charges and requested a hearing before formal charges were filed.[4] Katsav later publicly attacked Mazuz and declared: "My noose is Mazuz's lifeline."[7]

After the hearing, Mazuz agreed to a plea arrangement under which Katsav would plead guilty to lesser offenses, receive a suspended sentence, and compensate complainants. Katsav subsequently withdrew from the deal and was ultimately convicted of two counts of rape.[3] The episode drew criticism of Mazuz's decision to accept the proposed plea terms. In 2011, the Supreme Court also criticized him for discussing the evidence in a media interview while the case was before the courts.[3]

In August 2009, Mazuz indicted former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Olmert's former chief of staff Shula Zaken on charges that included breach of trust, falsifying corporate documents, and fraudulent conduct. He also charged Olmert with tax evasion and Zaken with illegal eavesdropping; both pleaded not guilty.[5]

Mazuz's enforcement approach during Israel's 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip became politically controversial. An article critical of the legal establishment's treatment of disengagement opponents states that Mazuz directed that protesters who blocked traffic routes be charged with endangering human life, an offense carrying a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison. It also states that he ordered police to block buses carrying protesters to a large demonstration at Kfar Maimon.[6]

The article presents those measures as excessive and places them within a broader criticism of the treatment of disengagement opponents. That assessment represents the author's contested characterization rather than an uncontested legal finding.

In September 2014, the Judges' Selection Committee chose Mazuz alongside Tel Aviv District Court Judge Anat Baron for appointment to the Supreme Court. The committee had also considered Judge George Kara and Hebrew University law professor Barak Medina among the candidates.[12] Mazuz formally joined the court in November 2014, bringing experience from the State Attorney's Office, the Justice Ministry, and the attorney general's office.[2]

Mazuz's judicial work reflected several recurring themes: opposition to governmental corruption, caution about judicial intervention in the legislative work of the Knesset, concern for human rights, and repeated objections to rulings permitting the demolition of homes belonging to terrorists' family members.[13]

In a case decided in December 2015 concerning demolition orders against the homes of two people who had carried out terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, the Supreme Court upheld the orders by majority, relying on earlier precedents. Mazuz dissented, arguing that the use of house demolitions against innocent family members should be restricted and that the circumstances should be weighed in each individual decision.[14]

In a March 2016 case involving the demolition of the home of the terrorist who killed Gennady Kaufman near the Cave of the Patriarchs, the court upheld the demolition by a two-judge majority. Mazuz dissented, while he and Justice Uzi Fogelman called for reconsideration by an expanded panel of questions concerning Regulation 119 of the Defence (Emergency) Regulations.[15] In another case that month, involving the planned demolition of the family home of a student who had assisted in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem, Mazuz concluded that the military commander lacked authority to order demolition because the student lived in a dormitory rather than his parents' home. He further reasoned that the weak residential connection, absence of a connection between the home and the attack, and the family's noninvolvement meant the decision failed tests of reasonableness and proportionality.[15]

In a 2015 case involving the planned demolition of the family home of Nur al-Din Abu Hashayeh, who had been convicted of killing Almog Shiloni, Mazuz and Justice Zvi Zylbertal joined a majority holding that the state's eleven-month delay between the attack and the demolition order weakened the deterrent rationale sufficiently to render the demolition unjustified, given the harm to innocent family members. The judges did not question the general legitimacy of home demolitions as a deterrent policy but focused on the circumstances of that case.[16]

In a 2020 case concerning the planned demolition of the home of the terrorist accused of killing IDF soldier Amit Ben-Yigal, Mazuz opposed demolishing the family home and emphasized the resulting harm to relatives who were not responsible for the attack.[13] More broadly, he questioned whether such demolitions deterred terrorist attacks, noting that security officials had themselves doubted their effectiveness and that demolitions could provoke hostility or revenge.[13] His positions drew sustained criticism from right-wing circles. Claims that the Supreme Court had consequently stopped assigning him to demolition cases were denied by former Supreme Court President Miriam Naor.[13]

Beyond the demolition cases, Mazuz issued significant opinions on public corruption. In a ruling concerning former Bat Yam mayor Shlomo Lahiani, he described governmental corruption as a threat extending beyond an individual criminal act, with potential social, political, moral, and economic effects and possible harm to national resilience. He warned that corruption could erode public trust and encourage disrespect for the rule of law.[13]

Mazuz also advocated restraint when reviewing the work of the Knesset. In a minority opinion on the Third Apartment Tax law, he objected to the majority's decision to invalidate the legislation over procedural defects. He argued that judicial intervention in the legislative process should be reserved for cases in which legislators were denied any practical opportunity to understand what they were voting on, and cautioned that a broader rule risked altering the sensitive constitutional relationship between the Supreme Court and the Knesset.[13]

In a case challenging Israel's implementation of the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, Mazuz concurred with the decision rejecting the petition. The court's reasoning, issued in January 2018 for a decision made in September 2016, found the relevant amendment to the Income Tax Ordinance constitutional.[17]

In December 2020, Mazuz announced that he would leave the Supreme Court on April 30, 2021, citing personal reasons. He said that he had spent six and a half years on the court and approximately forty years in public service and was departing roughly four years before the originally expected end of his tenure.[2]

At a small private gathering marking his retirement, Mazuz declined the traditional farewell ceremony for a departing Supreme Court justice.[18] He warned that political criticism and attacks on the judiciary and law-enforcement bodies made it harder for the court to perform its constitutional role, and argued that this made it more important for the court to defend democracy and human rights.[18] In his final letter as a justice, he objected to what he characterized as escalating attacks on the courts and law-enforcement agencies. He invoked Menachem Begin's 1951 call to put "the supremacy of law" on the nation's banner and argued that such hostility reinforced rather than diminished the importance of the court's role.[19]

In 2022, the government approved Mazuz as chairman of the committee that vets senior state appointments for a full eight-year term. The High Court of Justice voided the permanent appointment, reasoning that an outgoing government operating during an election period should generally prefer a temporary appointment absent exceptional circumstances.[20] Mazuz stated that he respected the ruling but considered it mistaken, and he declined the proposed temporary appointment for the limited purpose of approving the next IDF chief of staff.[20]

In January 2023, Mazuz described the government's proposed judicial overhaul, including measures to limit the High Court's powers, as the "most serious threat ever to Israeli democracy."[8] He urged public opposition and argued that the proposals' real aim was to weaken democratic checks and protections for human rights. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the proposed changes as measures that would strengthen rather than weaken democracy.[8] Mazuz had also reportedly stated that if the reforms were instituted, he did not know of anything in political-science literature that would allow such a country to be considered a democracy.[21]

Several decisions made during Mazuz's tenure as attorney general generated sustained public debate. Critics alleged that his June 2004 decision to close the Greek Island investigation against Ariel Sharon, contrary to State Attorney Edna Arbel's recommendation, was connected to Sharon's pursuit of the Gaza disengagement plan. The cited account also presents defenses of Mazuz's independence, and the Supreme Court upheld his decision by a six-to-one majority. No connection between the prosecutorial decision and disengagement has been established as fact.[6]

Mazuz was also criticized for agreeing to the proposed plea arrangement in the Katsav case and, separately, for later discussing the evidence while the case remained before the courts.[3] His enforcement approach during the Gaza disengagement and his opposition to demolishing terrorists' family homes drew criticism from the political right.[6][13] In 2022, the High Court voided his permanent appointment as chairman of the senior-appointments committee during an election period; Mazuz respected the ruling but said he believed it was mistaken and declined a temporary appointment.[20]