On the issue of "sex for appointment", the evidence shows that Naveh had intimate relationships with a female judicial candidate while he was serving in an influential public position. There were also allegations of having relationships with interns or lawyers, who requested Naveh's closeness against the background of his senior status (although I will clarify that there is no evidence before me that Naveh gave those women any compensation for this). On the other hand, it was proven that the criminal case against Naveh was ultimately closed without the filing of an indictment, and that the devices were illegally hacked by Yuli at her initiative, with the mediation and encouragement of Steif.
- The conclusion in this matter is that on the normative level, there is moral fault in Naveh's conduct, which created a severe conflict of interest, but on the physical-causal level, he should not be attributed contributory fault for the hacking itself. The hacking of password-protected devices and the copying of their intimate contents constitute a serious independent tort, which could not have occurred without Steif's active and illegal activity. Given that the compensation was given for the core of the tortious activity - the hacking of phones and the snooping of Naveh's personal information (and not for the publication) - I do not see fit to reduce the compensation for contributory fault to the damage.
- Another argument made by defendants 3-6 relates to the application of the rule "wrongful embezzlement shall not establish a right to sue". According to the same defendants, this is a clear case in which a person cannot establish a cause of action and receive legal relief for damage caused to him as a result of his own wrongful acts. According to them, Naveh's alleged damages stem directly from his improper, criminal and immoral conduct. The lawsuit in question is an attempt to circumvent the principle of cleanliness and good faith and to hold others responsible for the consequences of his own actions. In this context, Naveh replied that this was a erroneous claim that embodies a lack of understanding of the law, since his personal connections are his own affair alone, and the dozens of affairs attributed to him did not lead to even a single indictment. Naveh emphasized that the application of this principle is contingent on a close causal connection between the plaintiff's actions and the damage claimed, while the present lawsuit was filed for the improper acts of burglary, probation, processing and publication committed by the defendants themselves.
- The rule in the matter of "wrongful embezzlement shall not give rise to a right of action" is that a plaintiff cannot be entitled to relief when the cause of action is based on a serious illegal or immoral act, which is connected to a factual and legal causal connection to the damage. However, this is not an automatic revocation, and its application is reserved mainly for extreme cases. The purpose of the rule is to protect the public interest, to prevent the use of the court to realize improper acts, to prevent encouragement to violate the law, and to prevent a situation in which the sinner enjoys the fruits of his sin (Civil Appeal 4079/05 The Local Planning and Building Committee-Samaria v. Ma'ona Building Company Ltd., paragraph 27 (Nevo, November 11,2010)).
- In our case, despite the serious flaws in Naveh's conduct, I do not believe that there is room to dismiss the claim because of the rule of "A wrongful embezzlement will not give rise to a right of action." The reason for this is simple: A causal connection is required between the immoral conduct and the damage. It is not enough to have a factual connection alone, but a legal causal connection must also be examined. There is no legal causal connection between Naveh's actions and the event of the damage - if we recognize such a legal causal connection, this means that an illegal hacking into the mobile phones of someone whose actions are immoral or even illegal will be immune from tort claims. This is an unacceptable result from the point of view of common sense and in any case stands in contradiction to the precedents of the verses that we have reviewed regarding the importance of the right to privacy, which derives from a basic right: human dignity. Therefore, I reject the defendants' argument in this context.
- Another argument raised by some The defendants relate to the fact that Naveh waived his right to privacy or voluntarily risked exposing his secrets by leaving the mobile phones in Hani's home unattended. I do not accept this argument. Naveh's cross-examination shows that he did not expect Hani to transfer the phones to a third party in order to derive information from them. Therefore, the element of knowledge required for the purpose of protecting the voluntary risk does not exist (for more information, see: Civil Appeal 7008/09 Abd al-Rahim v. 'Abd al-Qader, paragraph 34 (Nevo, September 7,2010); Yitzhak Englard, Aharon Barak, and Mishael Cheshin The Law of Torts - The General Theory of Torts 317 (Gad Tedeschi, ed., 1970)).
- Moreover, Shteif's direct liability also derives from a breach of statutory duty. Therefore, the voluntary risk protection will not apply in these circumstances in accordance with the provision of the Section 5(b) to the Torts Ordinance, which states regarding the protection of voluntary risk that "the provisions of this section shall not apply to a claim filed for a tort arising from the failure to fulfill a duty that was imposed on the defendant by virtue of legislation."
And beyond that - just as we both had phones protected by some kind of password. Extracting the information from them was not a simple process for an ordinary person, and it required expertise and assistance with technological tools to penetrate the content that was stored in them. For this reason, too, I do not believe that leaving the phones in the couple's shared apartment (after Naveh left the house) constitutes a voluntary risk, consent to the invasion of privacy, or the causal cause of the damage in the sense Article 65 For the Torts Ordinance (for more information, see: Civil Appeal Authority 2809/18 Casabari v. Rosen, paragraph 8 (Nevo, November 26,2018)).