Published: 1 February 2022
Last updated: 4 March 2024
IRVING WALLACH: Israel gave the ex-minister a slap on the wrists for perverting the course of justice in the Leifer case, a blatant example of Haredi exceptionalism
THE BACKWASH TO the Malka Leifer affair ought to raise more than just a ripple.
Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, the former Israeli Health Minister and Gur Hasid, has pleaded guilty to breach of trust arising out of his illegal interference in pressuring psychiatrists to produce court reports that Leifer was supposedly mentally unfit to be extradited to Australia.
A far more serious charge of obstruction of justice has been dropped and there will not be a finding of moral turpitude.
It was also agreed the prosecutors will submit to a sentencing judge that Litzman should receive a suspended sentence and a fine of NIS3,000 (about A$1,300). He will not serve any time in prison.
It is now 13 years since Leifer’s rushed return to Israel from Melbourne in 2008 in the wake of allegations that she had sexually abused students at the Adass Israel school in Melbourne while she was the school principal.
In May 2020 an Israeli court finally ruled that Leifer was mentally fit and should be extradited to Australia. She is now in custody, facing some 65 charges, with her trial expected to commence in the County Court of Victoria later this year.
Victorian prosecutors had begun extradition proceedings in 2014. Following Leifer’s arrest in Israel the process before Israeli courts was expected to be concise. It became a drawn-out process in which farce threatened to degenerate into tragedy.
At one point, Leifer was indefinitely released on bail, supposedly mentally unfit but rearrested in 2018 when videos showed her living a normal life. There followed a seemingly never-ending procession of court hearings with psychiatric reports that Leifer was unfit to be tried.
Finally, complaints were made to Israeli police that the psychiatrists’ reports were false and the result of threats by Litzman, then Deputy Health Minister (in practice the Health Minister), to end the employment of a number of psychiatrists if they did not comply.
Would Litzman have escaped being sentenced to a term of full-time prison if this had occurred in Australia? Recent events in New South Wales strongly suggest he would not have been handed a “get out of jail” card here.
In October 2021, former NSW mineral resources minister Ian Macdonald was sentenced to jail for his role in the corrupt award of coal exploration licenses to Eddy Obeid, whose family subsequently made profits of some $30 million.
The charge was conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office. Macdonald was sentenced to nine years and six months in jail, of which he would be behind bars for at least five years three months.
The sentencing judge described Macdonald’s crime as very serious, involving deliberately corrupt acts which were designed to favour private individuals and produce vast profits for Obeid’s family. It was an attack on the integrity of government and undermined public confidence in government ministers as well as public confidence in the government.
How much more serious could a minister’s misconduct be than to pervert the course of justice in a court by way of false evidence?
This description also neatly fits Litzman’s actions and rings the same alarm bells. He had deliberately meddled in ongoing court proceedings with the intention of helping Leifer avoid facing trial for serious child sex offences.
As Deputy Health Minister, Litzman had absolutely no role in Leifer’s extradition proceedings and certainly had no business at all in contacting any psychiatrist or health official. Further, if Litzman did threaten any psychiatrist with dismissal, as alleged, it would be impossible to justify the absence of any finding of moral turpitude.
However, there is a further and even more serious dimension to Rabbi Litzman’s ministerial misconduct. His actions were not just about financial profits, they were an attempt to interfere in Leifer’s court proceedings and to prevent her facing justice.
In Australian law, this could be described as acting to pervert the course of justice, one of the more serious offences against public justice. Litzman’s actions would also be in the more serious range of offending.
He was a minister, he was trying to prevent court proceedings alleging serious crimes, he was attempting to intimidate witnesses and also attempting to influence expert witnesses to bring false evidence to a court.
How much more serious could a minister’s misconduct be than to pervert the course of justice in a court by way of false evidence? How could this not involve moral turpitude? If the former minister Ian Macdonald deserved five years and three months in jail, how could a failure to impose a jail sentence on Rabbi Litzman be justified?
This episode should be seen as yet another example of unacceptable Haredi exceptionalism in Israel.
