We are all privacy freaks, correct? We love our privacy; we mind our own business and try to ignore what doesn’t concern us. There are issues, however, that don’t concern us directly, and even though they are held behind closed doors, become part of our business.
One of these topics is certainly what happens in the courtroom, in secrecy and behind closed doors. Matters in the family court, in the juvenile court, and in all cases involving national security are always judged behind closed doors.
These cases are conducted as they are, in secrecy, in the name of “privacy” — privacy because there are minors involved, because there are very intimate details involved, or because of some national security issue concerning the case.
I am in favor of allowing evidence to be heard in secret in instances where it would compromise national security. However, what is done in practice, in Israel, has nothing to do with national security. The modus operandi is, if and when the police request “secrecy,” to hold the case behind closed doors — and in most of these instances, it is done so unnecessarily.
These are all excuses to avoid public scrutiny of the judicial system and of the judges themselves, and — all too often — to avoid embarrassing the police with their blunders.
Not all countries have the same policy; the majority of cases in other countries are, indeed, open to the public — but not here. In Israel, many people claim (and pathetically believe), that “we know better… we are the true defenders of privacy!”
In this short article, I will deal with one issue alone: minors who have been taken away from their biological parents, and the almost unlimited power of the social worker in the State of Israel.
As we are not a full democracy, there are no public statistics on the work done by social welfare in the country; it is a secret the social workers like to keep to themselves. I wonder why? Why should we, the citizens, not have full access to all the statistics behind the scenes?
Israel is one of the nations with the largest percentage of children who are taken away from their biological parents. These acts are mostly performed “voluntarily” by committees or internal panels in the welfare system (in Hebrew, va’adot). All of this is done in secret — with no real protocol, no public protocol, no video or audio — by “professionals” who are not even judges, and who decide if a child should be sent to boarding school (in Hebrew,pnimiyah).
Parents are enticed into accepting a deal: They are offered some financial perks in the name of “giving their child a better future.” The problem is that, ever since the founding of the State of Israel, nobody has ever conducted any serious research on the full impact on these children of being taken out of their natural habitat, away from their biological parents.
Seeing that incidents involving minors are conducted in absolute secrecy, the public is denied access both to the procedures — which might be merely a 15-minute hearing that decides the entire future of a family — and to the protocols or court decisions. And all this in the name of privacy.
If these cases are conducted in total secrecy — with access forbidden to the public, to journalists, to scholars specializing in the subject, to the Israeli bar, or even to most of the minor’s relatives(!) — who is left to criticize the system? What factor will serve as a brake to these arbitrary decisions or to those lacking in factual basis or even legal foundations?
The answer is what we see today: Judges became rubber stamps to the social welfare system; social workers fear nobody; families are destroyed; and children are placed in terrible frameworks that don’t give them any real hope. There is total secrecy, total chaos, and complete silence from those who could — if given the chance — be a voice for the weak side: we, the citizens.
In spite of items in the news such as “Research: An increase in cases of child abuse and negligence,” it is very difficult to go against the tide. We must make changes… we must end the dark days of secrecy behind doors in the name of privacy. In brief, we must open the courts to public scrutiny.
