The High Court of Justice on Monday rejected a petition to order President Shimon Peres to return donations of 320,000 US dollars he received from American businessmen with assets in Israel.
The petition, filed by the Land of Israel Legal Forum and Knesset Member Aryeh Eldad (National Union), noted that the money Peres received came from three Jewish American donors who have business interests in Israel. The donations were forthcoming just before internal Labor party primaries in 2004 in which then-Knesset Member Peres was competing. The State Comptroller at the time had harsh criticism for Peres, insisting he return the money. However, Peres refused to do so.
The justices noted that their legal decision does not necessarily imply any judgement on the ethics of accepting the money. In their reasoning, Justices Ayalah Procaccia, Salim Jubran and Neil Hendel wrote:
"The extent of the judicial intervention of this court is limited to the legal-normative lawfulness of a public administrative action under consideration. On the legal level, there is no cause to intervene in the decisions of the Attorney General and the Ethics Committee [of the Knesset, which did not challenge the donations - ed.]. This does not necessarily invalidate a different view of the issue in the field of extra-judicial civil ethics, wherein the relevant considerations and the proper balance do not necessarily match the balance required in the law. In the extra-judicial civil arena, value judgements are made by the public and by each individual, according to his own estimation and the value system he holds to."
The petitioners admitted that Peres acted within the confines of the law, but argued that he had undermined its spirit. His actions in receiving the cash and then in refusing to abide by the guidance offered by the State Comptroller, they argued, ran counter to the standards required of a public official.