Israeli Professor Warns Against Relying on Confessions in Democratic Courts

A legal principle from Jewish law states that a defendant's confession is as strong as testimony from a hundred witnesses in civil cases. However, in criminal cases involving corporal or capital punishment, courts do not accept confessions alone as evidence. This distinction aims to prevent wrongful convictions based on coerced or false confessions. Rabbi Adin Even-Israel explains this rule as a safeguard against forced confessions throughout history, citing examples such as Stalin's Moscow Trials in the 1930s, where innocent people confessed under torture and were executed.

The article questions why democratic courts, which are presumed pure and just, should not rely solely on confessions. It argues that judges are human and can err, as demonstrated by the controversial Israeli case of Roman Zadorov, where the court either wrongly convicted or wrongly acquitted the defendant under public pressure. Furthermore, the judiciary is inherently political, as noted by Thomas Jefferson, who warned about federal courts gradually expanding their power.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly accused police investigators and courts of fabricating evidence and misleading the public in politically charged cases against him. The article also highlights the case of Amir Ben Uliel, imprisoned for six years based solely on his confession, which was allegedly obtained under torture after the 2015 Duma arson attack. The author calls for a return to Jewish legal and moral values that prohibit self-incrimination to ensure justice and prevent miscarriages of justice in democratic societies.

The writer, chairman of the Professors' Forum for National Resilience, stresses the importance of adhering to the principle "a person does not incriminate himself" to protect the integrity of the legal system and uphold human rights.