In response to a petition filed by Channel 10 and journalist Raviv Drucker, Jerusalem District Court Judge David Mintzon on Wednesday ordered disclosure of details regarding conversations between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the owner of the popular daily Israel Today Sheldon Adelson and IT editor in chief Amos Regev. The judge ruled that the public interest in disclosure of the information supercedes the right of the latter three to privacy, in part because Netanyahu also serves as minister of communications.
Attorney Yonatan Berman, who represents channel 10, told Army Radio “the petition began with an investigation carried out by Raviv Drucker with respect to the relationship between the newspaper owner and the editor in chief with the Prime Minister.” He said the investigation indicated a significant relationship between Netanyahu and the IT editors.
“The Freedom of Information Act request was filed in order to receive the record on dates of meetings in this context,” said Berman, “there was no demand for the content of the conversations, only the dates.” Berman added that Netanyahu’s office argued that the relationship between the prime minister and Adelson and Regev are strictly personal and so they would not reveal the requested information.
The PM’s office also claimed that “the information would expose the Prime Minister’s relationship with his personal friends,” which are Netanyahu’s private affair.
Mintz’s ruling states that the requested information is in the gray area of private matters, and the law does not define the scope of “privacy,” since it is an abstract term whose boundaries are difficult to establish. “The discussion pertains to the range of a person’s social circles and his contacts with other people who may be included within his personal affairs… However, when the subject is a public official such as the Prime Minister, it may mean that information relating to his social circle falls outside the scope of his private matters,” Mintz wrote. “A person who accepts public office exposes himself to a great extent to the watchful eye of the public, how much more so a person who fulfills the most senior public role in government.”
The court referred to the Prime Minister’s Office’s claims that exposing the conversations could expose further details through cross-referencing available information about the times and dates of the conversations and events that happened during the same period. “On the contrary, this argument supports the petitioners’ claims,” Mintz wrote. “The respondents’ claim that it is possible to trace the connection between the timing of the conversations and known events might support the claim that there is a genuine public interest in this information … Therefore the times and dates of the conversations, with the proper weighing and balancing of the various interests, constitute the kind of information which is to be removed from the definition of expected privacy.”
However, the court held that before revealing the information Adelson and Regev must be informed of the results of the petition and allowed to object to the disclosure of the requested information.
Prime Minister’s Office announced that it will appeal the decision.