Knesset Gives Final Approval to Law Separating Police Internal Investigations Unit from the State Attorney’s Office

The Knesset approved in second and third readings the law to separate the Department for Investigation of Police Officers from the State Attorney’s Office and turn it into an independent body within the Justice Ministry. The proposal, submitted by MK Moshe Saada, passed by a vote of 43 in favor to 39 against and includes a sweeping change in the structure and powers of the department.

The Knesset plenum approved overnight Wednesday into Thursday the proposed amendment to the Police Ordinance, No. 45, 5786-2026, initiated by MK Moshe Saada. The law passed by a majority of 43 MKs in favor and 39 opposed, and is set to bring a significant change in the status and operation of the Department for Investigation of Police Officers.

Under the new law, the department will become an independent body within the Justice Ministry and will operate with a separate budget and independent authority to investigate and prosecute police officers for criminal offenses, including minor offenses. In addition, a new mechanism has been set for appointing the department head through a dedicated search committee, alongside the creation of a new position of coordinator for police-investigation matters, who will be authorized to decide disputes between the department and other investigative and prosecutorial bodies. The law also separates the department from the Attorney General’s legal advisory system. As part of the change, criminal powers currently held by the Attorney General and the State Attorney’s Office in cases handled by the department will be transferred to the department head. Appeals against decisions to close a case will also be submitted to the coordinator instead of the bodies currently handling them.

The explanatory notes to the bill say that in recent years reports by the State Comptroller, the Public Defender’s Office, and a special government team that examined the department’s activities pointed to a series of flaws in the handling of police offenses. In the team’s report, published in February 2025, the difficulty stemming from the department’s subordination to the State Attorney’s Office and the close connection between the prosecution and the police was highlighted, and it recommended establishing the department as an independent body.

The bill’s initiator, MK Moshe Saada, welcomed its approval and said, "Today we are carrying out a reform. This is a day of good news for the entire people of Israel, in which we are correcting the law enforcement system. There will be no more criminals in the service of the law, there will be no people above the law. In the State of Israel, everyone will be equal before the law. There is no dispute today that the department is not functioning and must undergo change. This system has deviated from its moral path. The law will restore public trust in the justice system."

The law states that the Department for Investigation of Police Officers will, for the first time, be removed from the hands of the State Attorney’s Office and from the control of the heads of the legal advisory system and the State Attorney, and will operate as an independent and autonomous body.

The department’s independence, which will take effect with the law’s approval, as a separate organization not subject to the State Attorney’s Office, is considered especially critical in light of a number of scandals in which the organization was allegedly involved, and which many consider to have made it over the years into a kind of "private militia" of the attorney general and an investigative body against police officers and citizens that is entirely subordinate to her. Among other things, the department was mentioned as having been involved in controversial investigations of Avishai Mualem, Lahav 433 chief Meni Benjamin, and Kobi Yaakobi, head of the Israel Prison Service, all of whom shared a refusal to comply with the attorney general’s dictates.

The law, as noted, was initiated by Saada, a senior former official in the department itself, and is largely based on the State Comptroller’s report on the matter, which determined that the situation in which the department is part of the State Attorney’s Office divisions without structural separation between them creates an institutional conflict of interest. The comptroller said that "the subordination of the department to the State Attorney’s Office, alongside the close and daily cooperation between the prosecution and the police in ordinary criminal cases, may create a structural conflict of interest." According to him, this organizational affiliation "undermines its independence." He further determined that his recommendation was to establish a professional team that would "re-examine the organizational and functional aspects of the department." He stressed that models ensuring "full independence" of all bodies handling complaints against police officers should be examined, while reviewing global trends that lean toward external and fully independent review bodies.

The report found that although the department is tasked with investigating the police, it still depends on the police for equipment, resources and certain operational support, such as escorting detainees or protecting investigators. The comptroller determined that this harms the department’s independence. After the report was published, the Justice Minister, as recommended in the report, appointed a special team to examine the department’s status and tasked it with recommending a series of structural changes to the government to ensure the organization’s independence. The team, headed by the director-general of the Justice Ministry, recommended removing the department from the State Attorney’s Office and re-establishing it as an independent body.

Saada’s law stipulates that the department will be independent and that its head will be appointed by a professional team to be established by the director-general of the Justice Ministry. The Attorney General and the State Attorney strongly opposed removing the department from the State Attorney’s Office, meaning from their control, and on the day the bill was laid on the Knesset table, about three years ago, State Attorney’s Office employees launched a general strike in protest against the law.