BREAKING NEWS

Justice Ministry oversight 'czar' files 2nd annual report

Hila Gristol, the first head of a Justice Ministry department that oversees and critiques around 3,400 state prosecutors’ and advisory lawyers’ decisions, has completed her second annual report summarizing her efforts, due to be published early on Monday.
The office was founded in late 2013 to improve performance in the Justice Ministry and increase public faith in law enforcement.
Gristol sent the report to Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, who has some powers over her division.
She will wade into the controversy between her office and the state’s prosecutors – a war that hampered her work throughout Mandelblit’s predecessor Yehuda Weinstein’s term and which is still unresolved.
The oversight “czar” described ongoing difficulties as the prosecutors united against the evaluation process.
Many of the prosecutors went on strike for 43 days, and there is a boycott of her office that continues even now, demanding that the Knesset pass legislation anchoring in law changes to her powers recommended by former Supreme Court justice and mediator Eliezer Goldberg.
The prosecutors say that Gristol’s current powers could lead to intimidating them from going after public corruption.
Gristol tried to portray her department’s work as successful despite the strike.