The High Court of Justice on Sunday pressed State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman over whether he has the legal authority to examine the core failures surrounding the October 7 massacre and the Iran war, repeatedly questioning whether parts of his review belong instead before a future commission of inquiry.
The hearing, held before an expanded panel of five justices, ended without an immediate decision.
The petitions seek to halt or limit Englman’s audit of the failures that preceded and accompanied the Hamas-led massacre, arguing that the scale of the disaster requires a broader, independent investigative mechanism and that the comptroller’s work could interfere with a future commission of inquiry, contaminate evidence, and harm the procedural rights of those who may be criticized.
At the center of the hearing was the question of whether the comptroller’s authority, rooted in oversight of public administration, extends to an inquiry into wartime policy, strategy, and personal responsibility for one of the gravest security failures in Israel’s history.
Justice Dafna Barak-Erez said the court was not questioning the importance of the State Comptroller’s Office, but rather the scope of its legal powers.
“There are those who say that even if everything done in the past was proper, we are facing an event on a different scale,” she said, adding that “great respect” for the institution of the comptroller was not the issue in dispute.
Justice Yael Willner framed the matter more directly, saying that the starting point was the question of whether an October 7 audit fell within the comptroller’s authority under law. Justice Alex Stein questioned whether the legislature had intended to give the comptroller sweeping authority to review every action of the executive branch, noting that the Basic Law details the fields subject to comptroller oversight.
Matter overlaps with future inquiry mechanism
The justices also raised concerns about a possible overlap with a future inquiry mechanism. Barak-Erez described the situation as a potential “race of authorities,” while Stein warned of the risk of “contaminating testimony” if the comptroller’s review proceeds before a commission of inquiry takes evidence.
Willner said that some of the questions sent by the comptroller to senior officials appeared to fall within the natural remit of a commission of inquiry and warned that parallel processes could create “fertile ground for contradictory decisions.”
Englman, who, unusually, attended the hearing in person, defended his office’s work and said that since beginning the audits, what stood before him was the need to correct failures while preserving the independence of the state audit.
“I am ending my term in another 60 days,” Englman said. “What I saw before me in the war audits was the citizens of Israel and the correction of deficiencies, while the comptroller’s institution maintains its independence and is not dependent on any decision by any other body to establish another mechanism.”
He told the court that a comptroller’s review does not contradict the establishment of a commission of inquiry.
“There is importance to a commission of inquiry in the overall aspect, and there is importance to correcting the details,” Englman said. “There is no audit without a norm, and without a norm, there will be no audit. We will not audit government decisions, but will examine whether the government complied with them.”
Englman added that the independence of the state audit is tested precisely in moments of disaster.
“A comptroller must not absent himself when disaster occurs,” he said.
His attorney, Dr. Matan Gutman, argued that the comptroller’s work would assist, rather than obstruct, any future commission of inquiry. He said that even if such a commission was expected to be formed, it remained unclear when that would happen and what form it would take.
The justices pushed back on that point, noting that a commission of inquiry would have its own staff and investigative tools, and that the comptroller was not meant to serve as a fact-gathering arm for another body.
Gutman maintained that the comptroller was empowered to examine the conduct of public bodies, including security bodies, and said that his office had followed the court’s previous rulings and preserved the procedural rights of those reviewed.
Englman also told the court that his office had created a unique framework for hearing those who said they had not been sufficiently heard.
“We are conducting the audit with great reverence,” he said. “Anyone who said we had not heard him enough – we created a unique framework and heard him for as many hours as needed.”
Representing Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara, attorney Yonatan Berman was asked by Wilner why, in the attorney-general’s view, October 7 was different from other major security events previously reviewed by state comptrollers.
“What about the events of October 7 does not allow the comptroller to audit?” Wilner asked. “Is it too large, does he not have enough manpower, or is it a legal issue: that he does not have the authority?”
Berman answered that the issue was the comptroller’s engagement with matters of policy, the more limited powers available to him compared with a commission of inquiry, and the procedural rights of those subject to review.
The Movement for Quality Government, one of the petitioners, said, ahead of the hearing, that the October 7 disaster could only be properly examined by a state commission of inquiry.
“Whoever wants to investigate must investigate properly,” MQG chairman Dr. Eliad Shraga said.
“There can be no real examination without meeting all the parties involved. The main road was, and remains, a state commission of inquiry. The comptroller’s investigation disrupts evidence, harms procedural rights, and constitutes an unreal substitute. A disaster of this scale requires an investigation by a state commission of inquiry. That is what the people of Israel deserve.”
The hearing was also briefly disrupted by members of the public who shouted at the justices, saying such things as “You have no authority.” Barak-Erez ordered two people removed and warned that further interruptions would lead the court to close the hearing to the public, with openness maintained solely through the live broadcast.
“We want to hold the hearing with the public present,” she said. “One more shout and we will close the hearing to the public.”
Outside the court, supporters of the comptroller’s review, notably captivity survivor Eitan Mor and his father, Tzvika Mor, demonstrated. Eitan said he had come because he believed the court’s decision to limit the comptroller’s review was wrong.
“As someone who sat in captivity for two years and saw people murdered in front of me, I deserve to know the truth,” he said.
The dispute over Englman’s audit began after he launched reviews in early 2024 into the failures surrounding October 7, including the conduct of the IDF, security bodies, and senior officials. The work drew opposition from petitioners who argued that it risked undermining a future state commission of inquiry and lacked the tools and protections required for an event of such magnitude.
In December, the High Court issued an interim order freezing work on several core audit topics, barring the comptroller from advancing those reviews while the petitions were pending.
Sunday’s hearing suggested that the court remains concerned not only with the practical overlap between the comptroller and a future inquiry mechanism, but with the more basic question of whether the state audit can be stretched to cover the heart of Israel’s October 7 failure.
A ruling will be issued at a later date.