Another “bombastic” and unnecessary bill has passed in the Israeli Parliament:
The “Noise Bill” or “Chok Haraash” in Hebrew. Personally I would call it “another noisy law”. The bill was supported by 47 MKs and only four voted against (51 out of 120 actually voted for or against the law).
Like many others, this newborn law will not be used for the population’s own good but as an extra incentive for the police to enter our houses without a warrant. We shall see how this law will be implemented in the near future or ignored for its noblest purpose: To make Israel a quieter place to live in.
The meaning of this new legislation is that from now on, cops may enter homes without a warrant instead of the former legislation. This means that police may enter private houses under certain special circumstances if they are perceived to be violating noise regulations and if there is “reason to believe” noise violation is causing “significant harm to the general public well-being” – a subjective decision.
Of course there are restraining breaks in the new law and a police officer is permitted to enter an establishment only if there is reason to believe (subjective decision) the noise violation is causing significant harm to the public well-being. According to the bill, the officer must identify himself upon entering the home but does not enable police to carry out a search of the establishment when responding to the noise complaint.
The reasonable person:
Reasonable is a subjective issue and not anything near objectivism. When still in law school I was asked by my criminal law mentor who is the “reasonable person”? I answered with a joke saying “I am”. My mentor (a very old famous Judge) told me: “Almost correct – the reasonable person is the honorable judge sitting on the bench and making the decisions in the case”.
With all due respect, there are no police officers that I would call “reasonable” when performing their duty. They are just humans trying to do their best, as fast as possible and go home safely – all that without much time to think when having to make quick decisions on the spot such as a call from a citizen who is annoyed by a noisy neighbor.
Fruit of Poisonous Tree
The exclusionary rule prevents evidence that was obtained through unlawful search and seizure from being admitted in trial. The “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine holds that any further evidence found as a result of information uncovered through an unlawful search is also inadmissible at trial. The logic is that if the source of the evidence, the “tree,” is tainted, so too are its gains, or “fruit.” The doctrine was created to safeguard an individual’s privacy interest under the Fourth Amendment and deter police from using unconstitutional means to gather evidence.
Unlike the US for example, Israeli Judges had and still widely accept evidence obtained through unlawful search; consequently this new bill will serve the police more than it will cater to the needs of the average Israeli citizen. This is why, during the committee’s deliberations, police representatives pushed for the legislation, saying that “some 286,000 complaints regarding excessive noise are received each year”, also stating that in most cases the people violating the noise regulations prevent officers from entering their homes.
It is interesting how naive these MKs can be or maybe how naive they want to be just to be more popular.
The “New Middle East”:
We talk a lot about the new era, the New Middle East but we keep behaving like in the old days. “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes).
The only way to change society, to change bad social behaviors is through education and not legislation but somehow we keep passing more and more bills, creating more and more unnecessary laws. Yet at the same time we keep ignoring the need for education.
As parents we have the obligation to teach our children how to respect the environment allowing it to be a “quiet” environment. As adults we have the moral obligation to respect others and as citizens we have a moral obligation to compromise and balance our rights to have loud music with our fellow neighbors’ right to live a quiet and decent life.
All these obligations are not obtained by legislation but with hard work on the education field. It is time we stopped passing bills and start to apply the same energy and money on the best weapon we, the Jewish people have besides our Torah – our education.
Two years have passed since I wrote the original article – The law has not solved or even modestly minimized a little the “noisy problem” we suffer from in Israel.
