News
Release
_____________________________________________________
The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
האוניברסיטה
העברית בירושלים
Anticipating
Winograd report: public’s confidence rests with critical
nature of findings, not formal makeup of commission, say researchers
Jerusalem,
January 23, 2008 – The single most important factor in the
public’s confidence in reports of commissions of inquiry is the
criticism that those reports contain and not necessarily the formal
composition of the commissions, say researchers at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and the Israel College of Management.
This
conclusion was reached on the basis of two public opinion surveys
conducted by Dr. Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan, of the Hebrew University’s
Department of Political Science and Federmann School of Public
Policy and Government, and Dr. Yifat Holzman-Gazit of the Law School
at the College of Management.
Their
surveys were undertaken in September 2006 with the establishment of
the Winograd Commission of Inquiry on the Second Lebanon War and then
again after the commission’s interim report published in May
2007. (The commission’s final report is due at the end of
this month.) The first survey covered 1001 respondents and the second
500 from those who were polled the first time.
The
researchers concluded on the basis of the responses to the two
surveys that it is not the legal stature of the commission (defined
mostly by the method of tribunal members' appointment) that
determines the public’s trust in the inquiry body’s
conclusions, but rather the content of the commission’s report.
The more critical the report that is issued, the more it is likely to
be seen as reliable and believable, the researchers found.
Dr.
Sulitzeanu-Kenan said the survey here bore out the results of his
earlier research in Britain “There too it was found that the
public’s trust in commissions of inquiry reports was
conditional upon the commissions’ conclusions being compatible
with those reached by the public,” he said. In other words, the
public generally expects such commissions to issue reports critical
of the subject and/or personages under inquiry.
In
the survey here concerning the Winograd Commission, the public was
shown to be positively influenced by the fact that a senior judicial
figure headed the commission, but was less interested in whether the
commission was appointed by the president of the Supreme Court (as in
the case of a national commission of inquiry) or by the government,
as is the case with Winograd.
This
finding, say the researchers, refutes the contention of those who
challenged in a Supreme Court case the way in which the Winograd
Commission was appointed by arguing that the public would have
confidence only in a national commission of inquiry.
“In
Israel, as well as in other places in the world, the political
dynamic, following a crisis, is characterized by public pressure to
establish a commission of inquiry. However, despite the fact that in
this case (the Winograd Commission) a government appointed rather
than court-appointed commission was appointed, there is no support to
the claim that this had any influence on the public’s faith in
the commission’s report,” conclude the researchers.
