IDI Vice President, Prof. Yedidia Z. Stern, withdrew his candidacy for the position of Attorney General of the State of Israel on Wednesday, November 25. Prof. Stern left the race in protest over the decision not to split the office of the Attorney General into two separate positions along the lines of an IDI recommendation supported by the Justice Minister. IDI has long recommended splitting the office of the Attorney General--a legacy of the British Mandate--because there is an inherent conflict of interest between the two roles currently assumed by the AG: that of legal advisor to the government and that of chief prosecutor of the state. The new Justice Minister, Yaakov Ne'man, has recently come out in favor of the split but has been overruled by the Prime Minister.

For an overview of the dilemma's arising from the dual responsibilities of the Attorney General, see a summary of IDI's roundtable debate, entitled To Divide or Not Divide: A Discussion of the Implications of Splitting the Responsibilities of the Attorney General. Photographs from the debate can be viewed here.

A special update was sent out to readers of IDI's Israel Democracy Update in September 2009 summarizing the difficult questions arising from the dual responsibilities of Israel's Attorney General. 

IDI has been studying the pros and cons of this unusual arrangement since 1997. An English abstract of a policy paper by IDI Senior Fellow Emeritus, Prof. David Nachmias, and Dr. Gad Barzilai, entitled Accountability: The Attorney General is available on our website.

For a full biography of Prof. Yedidia Stern and a list of select writings, click here.