At court’s behest, Ben Gvir agrees to reevaluate refusal to promote police detective

Judge gives Ben Gvir another chance to promote Ch. Supt. Ruti Hauslich as police detective’s attorney accuses him of meddling in appointments to benefit political agenda

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir agreed to reevaluate his refusal to promote police detective Ch. Supt. Ruti Hauslich, at a judge’s behest, at the conclusion of a Thursday court hearing on the matter.

Hauslich, an investigator who deals with incitement-related cases, is the second officer whose promotion Ben Gvir has refused to approve, bucking the counsel of senior brass.

He was required to submit a response to the Jerusalem District Court within 10 days that will outline his updated position.

Judge Tamar Bar Asher, who presided over the hearing, appeared to be granting the minister a final chance to promote the officer before handing down an official ruling on the side of Hauslich.

David Peter, Ben Gvir’s lawyer, claimed the reason for the minister’s refusal is that Hauslich misled the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice committee during a discussion on incitement-related investigations.

According to Peter, she presented a narrow characterization of the police’s position on a bill that would allow law enforcement to launch probes into incitement without a greenlight from the State Attorney’s Office. He blamed her for excluding the position of the Jerusalem District police, though she does not serve in the district.

Hauslich’s lawyer contended that she did what was expected of her at the meeting by presenting the stance of the branch she serves in — the investigations and intelligence division — which is responsible for handling incitement probes.

“The minister continues to echo a narrative in which the officer [Hauslich] woke up one bright morning and, despite her having vast experience and being an outstanding officer who acted on her commanders’ orders, chose to lie in the Knesset,” said Dov Gilad Cohen, representing the detective.

Judge Bar Asher appeared unconvinced by Ben Gvir’s argument, but held off on handing down a ruling on the matter, instead giving him a chance to reconsider his position.

Ben Gvir “came to her [Hauslich] with the argument that she doesn’t present the Jerusalem District’s position. But as the authorized entity currently responsible for online incitement, she collects the information she knows. She doesn’t need to bring information from the Jerusalem District,” Bar Asher said.

The hearing was held a day after the minister appeared before the High Court for a petition urging justices to order his dismissal. Petitioners claimed that promotions were one of several ways in which Ben Gvir has attempted to exert political pressure on police, which his ministry oversees.

It was not the first time the minister had refused to sign off on the promotion of a police investigator, against the advice of senior commanders.

In February, the Jerusalem District Court determined Ben Gvir was motivated by “extraneous considerations” in his refusal to promote Ch. Supt. Rinat Saban, who was involved in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

After Ben Gvir repeatedly refused to obey the court’s orders to promote Saban, she was given her new rank of chief superintendent by force of a judicial decision, without the minister’s official signature.

Keren Yost, representing the State Attorney’s Office, said during the hearing that “it’s no coincidence that Ben Gvir is interfering in appointments in the investigations division [of police].”

“There is an attempt here to bypass the chain of command, in order to convey the message, in a very blatant manner, that the division should operate with loyalty to the minister, not to the organization [police],” she said.

Cohen claimed Ben Gvir’s stonewalling was part of a larger series of “struggles between the minister and certain officials in the investigations and intelligence division” regarding their “professional outlooks on the threshold needed to launch certain investigations.”

He brought up the High Court hearing Wednesday, noting that the police’s handling of incitement and speech-related offenses was central to the discussion.

“We saw a giant polemic yesterday in the High Court regarding the incitement department, and who deals with incitement? Hauslich,” he said, adding that the officer plays a major role in accepting or rejecting requests to launch probes into such suspicions.

The incitement department is a fledgling body established by Ben Gvir meant to deal with incitement offenses, as opposed to the investigations and intelligence division.

Its operations were recently frozen by police chief Danny Levy following a court order, after a judge ordered a halt to the body’s “proactive monitoring” of individuals on social media without concrete suspicions of a criminal offense.