JUDGE SHELLY TIMAN: “I CAN’T SERVE THE CAUSE OF JUSTICE ANYMORE”
Everything that’s happened – and that continues to happen – in relation to the fraudulent court case and politcally-motivated prosecution of Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita, raised some very serious questions about the corrupt nature of the Israeli Police and judiciary within the wider orthodox Jewish community in Israel.
Those questions are starting to resound in all areas of Israeli society, as the cracks within the Israeli ‘justice’ system are starting to be seen by more and more people.
Judge Shelly Timan, one of the senior judges in the Tel Aviv district court, recently quit his position, and gave a televised interview on Israeli Channel 2 where he explained how the corrupt nature of the ‘justice’ being done in Israeli courts drove him out.
Watch the interview below (click cc to allow English subtitles)
Judge Timan said:
“I left my job absolutely convinced that I’m doing the right thing, because I felt I couldn’t serve the cause of justice anymore.
“There are people who are rotting away in prison. Many of them still haven’t even been brought to trial yet or convicted [of any crime]. Others are completely innocent of doing any crime,” he explained.
“In a democracy, a person’s case should be judged in a prompt fashion, but you see how many cases here (in Israel) have a huge delay before they come to trial,” continued Timan. “I tried, I really tried, but I can’t stand it anymore.” Timan went on to lament the enormous number of people who were caught up in the prison system, waiting for their cases to even come to court.
Judge Timan continued that it was only when he recently acquitted the defendants in two cases that he adjudicated, that he realized that the Israeli Justice system had a real problem with finding any defendants ‘innocent’.
“The prosecutors have enormous egos, and they want to see a conviction at any cost,” explained Timan.
“There’s also a lot of errors and omissions [in the evidence], because the Israeli police aren’t doing their job the way they’re supposed to, again because there are a lot of ambitious people who want to win a conviction at any cost.
“And so, people are rotting away [in prison] for the rest of their lives, or for very long stretches of time.”
Judge Timan then made the following stunning indictment of the Israeli Justice system:
“I’m very sorry to say it, but the Israeli police are stitching people up, and fabricating charges.”
“Also, the pressure from the media is also very hard for the judges to bear, and its skewing their decisions. Lobbyists and the media are determining the fate of the accused.”
Timan concluded: “I’m very sorry to say it, but there are judges [in Israel] who don’t know what it means to find a defendant innocent.”
