Petition Filed to Disqualify Former Shin Bet Chief Yoram Cohen from Knesset Run
An appeal has been filed with Israel's Supreme Court, the High Court of Justice (Bagatz), seeking to disqualify Yoram Cohen, former head of the Shin Bet security agency, from running for the Knesset, Israel's parliament, with the 'Yashar' party. The petition was submitted by attorney Rachavia Piltz on behalf of activists from the 'Justice for Amiram' headquarters.
The activists argue that Cohen's alleged involvement in authorizing harsh interrogation methods against Amiram Ben-Uliel and a minor in the Duma case, along with other serious investigative failures during his tenure, contravene Israel's values as a Jewish and democratic state. They contend these actions disqualify him from serving as a lawmaker.
This appeal follows an earlier attempt by the activists to have Cohen disqualified, which was summarily dismissed by the Chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Noam Sohlberg, without a hearing. The dismissal was based on a procedural technicality: the petition lacked the required signatures from one-third of the committee members, as stipulated by regulations.
The petitioners assert that this procedural hurdle should not prevent a substantive discussion of the core issue. They claim that similar petitions against other candidates were not subjected to such strict procedural scrutiny, constituting discrimination that warrants the Supreme Court's intervention.
The central claim is that Cohen was actively involved in approving physical interrogation methods in the Duma investigation, which they describe not as an isolated incident but as a pattern during his leadership. The activists believe this created a system that preemptively protected the use of forbidden methods, undermining the rule of law. A statement from 'Justice for Amiram' declared, "A person who approved severe human rights violations, circumvented the law, and provided backing for extracting confessions by force is not fit for the Knesset. This petition is not a procedural matter but a call to set a moral and legal red line at the heart of Israeli democracy."
