The Media Line: Israel’s Missing State Comptroller Leaves Whistleblowers Exposed During Election Campaign  

Israel’s Missing State Comptroller Leaves Whistleblowers Exposed During Election Campaign  

The disputed election of a new comptroller has left the office without a leader, halting protective orders for public employees and limiting oversight of political finances  

By Gabriel Colodro / The Media Line  

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 Likud, including in matters involving coalition agreements that could later fall within the comptroller’s scrutiny. She described the compromised ballot as unlawful and a case of improper administration, while stopping short of defining it as corruption in the criminal sense.  

Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana has not convened the renewed vote. According to reports, Ohana said the Knesset had already expressed its position and indicated it did not intend to hold another election. The Knesset’s legal adviser, Sagit Afik, reportedly advised that the Knesset was required to comply with the ruling and that its dissolution did not prevent it from voting for a comptroller.  

Opposition parties have not mounted a sustained effort to force another vote either. Israeli reports said that some of the parties connected with the original court challenge had not asked the High Court to enforce its ruling, set a firm deadline, or consider contempt proceedings.   

Dr. Guy Lurie, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, told The Media Line that the petitioners could request a clarification specifying when and how the Knesset speaker must carry out the decision. In an earlier dispute involving a speaker who delayed compliance with a court order, the justices issued further instructions governing the process. Such an application could move quickly, Lurie said, although he declined to speculate about why it had not been filed.  

He noted that the law does not provide for an official who automatically assumes all of the comptroller’s functions during a vacancy. Although the office continues to employ investigators and other professional staff, the statutory powers belong to the comptroller personally.  

Work approved by Englman before his departure may continue, but no comptroller is available to initiate new examinations, make required decisions, or approve completed reports for publication. “You don’t have an actual state comptroller who can fulfill the powers of the state comptroller,” Lurie said. “It’s a very substantial weakening of the institution at a crucial time in this institution’s role, namely the election process.”  

That role is narrower than policing every disputed campaign activity. Questions involving election propaganda generally fall under the chair of the Central Elections Committee, while suspected crimes may be referred to the police. The comptroller’s election responsibilities include auditing the finances of political parties and primary candidates, examining the work of the elections committee, and supervising outside organizations whose activities fall under Israel’s rules for entities active in elections.  

Much of that enforcement occurs after voting is over. The comptroller reviews income, donations, and expenditures, publishes findings, and may reduce a party’s public funding if violations are found. Reports may also produce information that leads to a criminal investigation. During the campaign, the comptroller can request records and advise parties, candidates, and outside groups on whether proposed financial activity complies with the law.  

Lurie did not argue that the vacancy, by itself, invalidates the coming election. He said Israel’s campaign-finance supervision was already limited by its reliance on reviews conducted after the fact. The absence of a comptroller, however, may give parties or private individuals additional room to circumvent donation and spending rules, particularly because there is no officeholder able to demand information or update guidance as questions arise.  

The most immediate consequences are being felt outside party politics. The state comptroller also serves as Israel’s ombudsman and can issue temporary or permanent orders when a public employee faces retaliation after reporting corruption. Those orders can stop a dismissal or reduction in salary, return an employee to work, provide compensation, or arrange a transfer to another suitable position.  

Rosenfeld, who heads the Movement for Quality Government’s Whistleblower Protection Unit, said that the procedure was designed to be faster and more accessible than litigation. Applicants do not generally need an attorney, and the process is not bound by the same evidentiary and procedural rules as a labor-court case. She said police and correctional officers are in an especially precarious position because they cannot use the labor-court route available to other public employees.  

The difference is not limited to cost and waiting time. Rosenfeld said an employee who files a labor court case may be questioned under oath by lawyers representing the employer, who can argue that the dismissal resulted from poor performance rather than retaliation. The ombudsman’s examination is conducted by professional staff and does not require the whistleblower to confront the employer in court.  

Rosenfeld said her unit had received substantially more requests for assistance during the current government, but she had not yet identified an increase specifically connected with the election campaign. The movement is preparing for possible cases as voting approaches, she said, but the available information does not establish that the campaign itself has produced more whistleblower complaints.  

“There is now a void,” Rosenfeld told The Media Line. Existing investigations have been stopped, and new requests are being rejected without an examination, she said. In one case, documented in a July 9 letter from the movement, the comptroller’s office informed a whistleblower whose complaint was already under review that the process had been halted because no authorized official could decide it. The movement said it had verified the account but withheld the employee’s identity and the details of the complaint to prevent further retaliation.  

The movement’s first letter to the Knesset State Control Committee, sent July 8, proposed appointing an acting comptroller under Section 29 of the State Comptroller Law. It cited a 1978 case in which the committee named Yaakov Hirsch, then director-general of the comptroller’s office, to serve temporarily while State Comptroller Yitzhak Nebenzahl was ill. The movement asked the committee to use that authority at least for the ombudsman’s whistleblower-protection powers.  

Rosenfeld said the committee rejected that interpretation, concluding that Section 29 applies when a serving comptroller is temporarily unable to perform the job, not when the position is vacant. The committee also did not hold the broader hearing requested by the movement, which wanted officials to explain how many complaints had been halted, whether emergency applications were pending, and what information was being given to new applicants.  

The movement’s follow-up letter argued that even if the professional staff cannot issue protection orders, it could continue to collect documents, interview the parties, and prepare cases for a decision once an authorized officeholder is appointed. A complete suspension creates additional legal uncertainty because whistleblower claims are subject to limitation periods. It is unclear whether cases already under examination will resume from the point at which they stopped, or whether the intervening months will count against applicants.  

Rosenfeld was not confident that another court ruling would resolve a dispute already rooted in the refusal to implement the first one. The movement could file another petition, she said, but it has previously had to seek contempt proceedings when government officials did not carry out judicial decisions.  

For whistleblowers facing dismissal now, the choice cannot always wait for that legal process. They can spend tens of thousands of shekels and enter the labor courts, or remain without an enforceable protection order until the Knesset elects a comptroller. Once an employee chooses litigation, Rosenfeld said, the ombudsman will generally not reopen the matter later. “You’re stuck there,” she said.