Attorney General Menachem Mazuz yesterday told the High Court of Justice that Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger should cease to serve as a dayan (rabbinic judge) on the Supreme Rabbinic Court.
Mazuz added that the committee charged with selecting rabbinic court judges was also responsible for ending their tenures.
Mazuz’s position came in response to a petition submitted by attorney Boaz Arad on behalf of the Ometz – Citizens for Good Government and Social Justice movement, which is opposed to a decision by the judicial selection committee in February not to dismiss Metzger over the free accommodation and benefits he received from hotels.
The police began investigating the affair in December 2004, in the wake of an investigative report on television, which stated that Metzger had received free accommodation at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem during Passover.
The report also referred to three other incidents in which the chief rabbi supposedly received benefits from hotels in Jerusalem. In April 2006, after the police had investigated the various affairs, Mazuz decided to close the file for lack of evidence. But at the same time, Mazuz called on Metzger to take some responsibility and draw personal conclusions.
