Adalah Criticizes New Bill Absolving Police from Audio and Video Documentation of Investigations of Detainees Suspected of Committing Security Offenses
On 30 April 2008, Adalah sent a letter to the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General demanding that they object to a new bill that would absolve the police from making audio and video recordings of investigations with detainees suspected of committing security offenses. The ministerial committee for legislation discussed the bill on 23 March 2008, but its members have yet to give it their approval.
Article 7 of the Criminal Procedures Law (Investigation of Suspects) – 2002 stipulates that the police have a duty to make audio and video recordings of investigations with all detainees suspected of committing offenses for which the maximum sentence is ten years or more. The law also mandates the video recording of investigations of those with special needs who cannot confirm the accuracy of the content of their testimonies due to their disabilities. In practice, the aforementioned bill seeks to absolve the police of their duty only in the case of security detainees.
In the letter, Adalah Attorney Abeer Baker argued that the bill is unconstitutional because it frees the police from using one of the basic means of ensuring a fair investigation and a fair trial. The bill violates the constitutional rights of detainees to equality, dignity and fair legal proceedings, and precludes the legal observation of investigatory proceedings, and of the legality of the evidence presented before the courts, in particular defendants’ confessions.
Audio and video recordings are an effective way of assisting courts in reviewing the investigation process, and thus in gaining an impression of the conduct of the suspect and the investigators, as well as in admitting or precluding the investigatory material as evidence in court, in particular confessions, which are in many cases false. Adalah emphasized that there is a high likelihood of false confessions being extracted and torture being used against detainees in the case of security suspects, basing its arguments on recently-published reports that prove the continuing use of torture and illegitimate methods of investigation against Palestinians.
Absolving the police from making these recordings constitutes a clear breach of Israel’s duty, stipulated in Article 11 of the UN Convention against Torture (CAT), to review the proceedings and methods of arrest and investigation used towards detainees, for the purpose of preventing any form of torture or abuse.
Adalah further argued in the letter that the police and the General Security Services (GSS or Shabak) must record all investigations on an equal basis. Excusing them from doing so would create a chaotic situation in which detainees could be used by investigators as they please, as mere tools, without any judicial oversight or supervision. The bill also stands to legitimate the continuing extraction of false confessions from detainees and their unjust imprisonment for years on end, even life.
