The Supreme Court on Thursday heard the petition of the Movement for the Quality of Government, which claimed that the Firearms Division under National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir distributed weapon permits improperly.
The High Court accepted, at least for now, the response of the investigators who stated that “the findings of the investigation so far indicate that upon initial examination it turns out that the majority of [the permits] were distributed to people who meet the criteria established by law.”
In June, the police Lahav 433 special investigations unit summoned the former head of the firearms division at the Ministry of National Security, Israel Avishar, for questioning with a warning on suspicion of illegally distributing weapons permits. Avishar had resigned from his position last December.
The Movement for the Quality of Government claimed in its petition that the distribution of firearm permits to approximately 14,000 citizens by State and Knesset employees, including political appointees in the Ministry of National Security, was done without proper authority, and should therefore be considered null and void and the permits that were distributed should be declared illegal.
Furthermore, the Movement claimed that Ben Gvir and Speaker Amir Ohana’s instructions to their employees amount to a reasonable suspicion of encouraging committing criminal offenses, and require a criminal investigation or, at the very least, a preliminary investigation.
During the hearing, Judge Yael Wilner said to state representative Daniel Marks: “What are you doing in terms of canceling the permits? Where is the public? I read your preliminary response and it was poor. You submitted a page and a half. This is the response to the petition? Why can’t you show us confidential material that we can read?”
Marks replied that “there is a fear of disruption [of the criminal investigation]. This is not a normal situation with normal materials. We want to describe the full factual picture.”
Judge Ofer Grosskopf slammed Marks, saying, “You distributed 14 thousand permits by an unauthorized party, and they will remain in the hands of the people who will continue to act as if they have a license – so that the investigation would continue? Is this the situation? It sounds illogical to me.”
After the closed-door hearing had let out, state representative Marks said that “the findings of the investigation so far show that thousands of firearms permits were issued for the relevant period with the required caution,” and that “a preliminary examination shows that most of them were distributed to people who passed the tests.”
However, judging by the attitudes of the judges, this is far from being a victory for Ben Gvir’s ministry.
Judge Itzhak Amit concluded the hearing with the statement, “This hearing was a kind of first aid, to understand what is happening on the ground. It was important for us to hold the hearing. We asked the state that the explanations or review we received behind closed doors be put on the record, and we will issue a decision regarding the continuation of hearings in the case.”
