(photo credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/FLASH90)
When a public employee who says he was fired for reporting wrongdoing sought emergency protection from Israel’s state comptroller, the office had no authorized head to consider his case. He turned instead to the labor court, spending nearly 90,000 shekels - about $30,000 - on legal action, according to an attorney who advised him.
Israel has had no state comptroller since the term of the outgoing comptroller, Matanyahu Englman, expired on July 5. The vacancy has interrupted a central avenue for protecting public-sector whistleblowers and left parts of Israel’s campaign-finance oversight without the official empowered to act.
The vacancy followed a disputed vote in the Knesset to choose Englman’s successor. The state comptroller is elected by lawmakers through a secret ballot, but several members recorded or otherwise revealed their votes during the second round of the process. On July 2, the High Court of Justice invalidated the election of attorney Michael Rabello and instructed the Knesset to conduct another vote between the two candidates who had already been presented.
The court did not rule on a separate conflict-of-interest argument raised against Rabello. Attorney Rachel El-Shai Rosenfeld of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel said Rabello had represented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and...
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