"All the heads of the security establishment - including the head of the Shin Bet - owe a duty of loyalty to the public. The loyalty of the heads of the security establishment is not partisan-political loyalty to a particular government or personal loyalty to one prime minister or another. It is loyalty to the entire Israeli public, which has entrusted them with the most precious of all" (ibid., at paragraph 25 of my judgment).
- In this context, the Applicants propose a rule according to which:
"A determination that there is an alleged crisis of confidence between an appointed minister and a senior and independent officer requires that the crisis of trust was created not by the very act of performing the position in accordance with the law and the rules that define the position and in accordance with the professional judgment of the office holder, so that compliance with these cannot constitute a loss of confidence that amounts to a 'severe and ongoing crisis of confidence.'" [Emphasis in the original - 10] (Paragraph 107 of the request for an additional hearing).
This position is mainly accepted by me as well, since it is in line with my approach on the matter Head of the Shin Bet.
- Before concluding, I found it necessary to make two more short remarks regarding the limits of the interpretation of the cause of the crisis of confidence.
(-) "Acute and Persistent" - the demand that the crisis of confidence be Acute and Persistent It implies that, as a rule, one or more isolated incidents is not sufficient to establish a crisis of confidence of the kind that justifies the termination of the term of office of a senior officer, certainly the person in an independent and independent position. Therefore, the use of this ground requires the existence of a significant accumulation of acute events that attest to an objective crisis of confidence, and which are spread over a long period of time.
(-) "A condition that prevents efficient and proper functioning" - In the proceeding that is the subject of the additional hearing, the question arose If The conclusion of the cause of the crisis of confidence ("the existence of an acute and protracted crisis of confidence, or the existence of substantial and protracted disagreements between the senior officer and his superiors, Creating a situation that prevents efficient and proper functioning") is required only in relation to the alternative of "disagreements" or both alternatives? The text "is a rabbi-Meaningful. This is a rabbi.-Syntactic meaning. It is due to the structure of the words or their order in a sentence. [...] It creates several linguistic meanings. The choice between them is not made on-Pi Amot-linguistic measure. The choice between them is made on-according to the purpose that lies at the foundation of the normative arrangement. From the variety of linguistic meanings, the meaning that realizes the purpose that lies at the foundation of the legal norm will be extracted."Criminal Appeal Authority 2060/97 Vilenchik v. The District Psychiatrist - Tel Aviv, IsrSC 52(1) 697,716 (1998)). In the judgment that is the subject of the additional hearing, the judge Elron Leave the question Open. In this regard, I say that in my own opinion, the conclusion should be read as referring to the two alternatives listed in the cause of action - the alternative of the crisis of confidence and the alternative of disagreements. This conclusion is required from the objective approach according to which a crisis of professional confidence should be pointed out, on the basis of objective evidence and not on the basis of reasons of the heart. In my view, another interpretation undermines the basic purpose underlying the arrangement embodied in the relevant government decisions, which is to reduce the concern that proceedings for termination of the term of office of senior officers of the type we are dealing with will be abused and carried out on the basis of improper considerations. To this, it should be added that the termination of the term of office of a senior officer during the fixed term is not a trivial matter, and therefore it is required that it be done only in exceptional cases in which keeping him in office would lead to harm to the efficient and proper functioning of the authority.