The real reform Israel needs is in the Bar Association - Efi Nave

Controversial Israel Bar Association chairman candidate Efi Nave attacked the State Attorney's Office's slow pace of dealing with cases in a new Bar election campaign advertisement on Sunday, saying that this was the reform that Israeli citizens needed.

"Today, cases, even small ones, lay at the State Attorney's Office for 3-5 years - sometimes even more - without receiving a decision, said Nave. "In the meantime, people are getting foreclosures, frozen bank accounts, business activity stopping because people have no way of paying salaries, travel bans, lives are ruined in a moment -- and this is before talking about the families that fall apart and the good names that are ruined and health destroyed."

Nave said that citizens were having their lives ruined because the State Attorney's Office had no motivation to hurry and that in their eyes they have as much time as they would need to address a case. 

The former Bar head demanded that the State Attorney had to make decisions on cases within 1-2 years. If a decision wasn't made within that time frame, Nave said that the case should be closed.

"This is the reform that needs to be done," said Nave, as ongoing judicial reform negotiations and debates continued in the country.

Nave: Israel's Bar Association is too political

Nave came out against the judicial reform last Monday but said that the Bar Association had become too politicized and needed to only challenge the proposals in suitable forums such as the Knesset. Nave said that current Bar leadership had involved the organization far too much in protests and politics, jeopardizing its ability to represent the interests of all its members. The previous Bar chairman, Avi Himi, was an outspoken critic of the judicial reform proposed by Justice Minister Yariv Levin in January. 

"Everyone agrees that the judicial system and law enforcement need changes, but not the current way. I'm against many parts of the plan of  Levin, and of course, if they will try to take attorneys out of the Judicial Selection Committee," said Nave. "But I'm against all attempts to enter the Bar into the political field."

Nave also on Wednesday attacked suggestions to turn the Bar into a volunteer organization, which he said would erase all the achievements of the association. Currently, Israeli attorneys must be part of the Bar.

Scandals and resignations in Israel's Bar Association

Following a 2019 sex-for-judgeship scandal, which was dropped by the State Attorney's Office in 2021 for lack of trial viability, Nave resigned from the chairmanship of the Bar. 

Himi resigned in January following his own sex scandal, opening the chairman position to an election on Tuesday.

Nave has faced controversy in his run. He overcame possible disqualification in mid-May over technical matters pertaining to digital signatures of support from other lawyers, rather than written signatures. 

The Movement for Quality Government has called on the State Attorney's Office to file an ethics complaint against Nave's running for office, over both the sex scandal and a 2022 conviction for sneaking his partner past customs border security at Ben-Gurion Airport in 2018. MQG renewed the call on Thursday by appealing to the Attorney-General's Office.