Israel Health Ministry defies court order to produce COVID data
Israel’s Health Ministry has again failed to produce COVID-19 data as ordered by the court in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request last year.
Frontline News previously reported that a Jerusalem District Court gave the Health Ministry until November 15th to produce various COVID-19 data on morbidity and mortality in response to the FOI request by petitioner David Shuldman.
According to the ruling posted by Dr. Yaffa Shir-Raz, the Health Ministry was enjoined to produce data on all-cause mortality throughout the pandemic — including COVID-19 deaths — segmented by vaccination status, recovery from COVID-19, and underlying diseases; child deaths from COVID-19, specifying whether they carried underlying diseases; and deaths segmented by underlying diseases and vaccination status.
The Health Ministry was ordered to produce all data grouped by month, though the child death figures must be grouped both monthly and annually.
As noted by Dr. Shir-Raz, child illnesses and deaths were “the alleged basis for the MOH's fear-mongering campaign designed to get parents to vaccinate children.”
But while the ministry handed over some COVID data to Shuldman on November 13th, it was not segmented by age group as ordered by the court, making it unusable for calculating all-cause mortality, according to The Epoch Times. This marks the third time the Health Ministry produced incomplete information.
The ministry’s refusal highlights a disturbing trend in Israel’s government in which ministries appear to operate outside the judicial system.
Last week, after refusing to respond to another FOI request, this time regarding Israel’s historic vaccine agreement with Pfizer, the Health Ministry simply told a Jerusalem District Court it had lost the contract. The ministry’s attorney, Ahava Berman, also told the court the ministry was unsure if the agreement had ever been signed in the first place. Only after an inquiry from an Israeli news outlet did the ministry suddenly “find” the signed document.
Last month, Frontline News reported that Israel's police are refusing to disclose a secret algorithm being used to profile and detain passengers at the airport who have no criminal history and provide no cause for suspicion. Israeli courts have expressed concern about the artificial intelligence program, which raises several legal issues.
The existence of the program was revealed during a recent trial, but the police refused to provide any details about the program to the court.
"We received no clarification on how the system works and on what basis of information people are added to the list,” said Central District Court Judge Merav Greenberg. “There is no claim that the inclusion [of a suspect] is based on concrete information."
Greenberg added that "conducting a search of a person or their body involves a serious violation of their constitutional right to privacy. It is established that, in the absence of an explicit authorization by law, such searches should not be conducted, and to the extent that the search is conducted illegally, the use of its output may be limited."
Supreme Court Judge Anat Baron also weighed in on the secret program when the case was brought for appeal.
"Indeed, the manner in which the petitioner was arrested at the airport when he was located by the 'generalization method' . . . a method whose nature, at least at this stage, cannot be verified — causes difficulty and the question arises whether the search was carried out illegally,” said Baron.
However, despite the legal concerns expressed by Israel’s highest court, the police continue to openly operate the program.
