This paper reviews the recent decision of the Israeli Supreme Court in the case of Tbeish v Attorney General, in light of the 1999 landmark Public Committee against Torture in Israel (pcati) case, which prohibited torture and ill-treatment of detainees, but acknowledged necessity as a possible criminal defence for interrogators. Tbeish is not framed as a break from the past, or even as a change in the law, but I argue that it provides a new authorization for torture and ill-treatment. The Court upheld internal guidelines of the Israeli Security Agency (isa) that establish a ‘necessity procedure’ for the application of ‘special interrogation means’. The Court’s specific construction of the guidelines circumvents the unambiguous prohibition in pcati on general rules setting criteria for using special interrogation means, by turning the process into a supposedly ad hoc decision on each individual case without preexisting rules. Nevertheless, this paper argues, the decision approves a system of prior authorization for the use of violent means of interrogations. Creating a framework for an organizational decision, the guidelines relieve interrogators of personal responsibility for potentially unlawful acts by shifting the meaning and function of necessity from a criminal defence to a principle of governmental action. As such, they provide bureaucratic authorization and justification for acts which violate the prohibition against torture.

鉴于1999年以色列具有里程碑意义的禁止酷刑公共委员会（pcati）案，该文件回顾了以色列最高法院在Tbeish诉总检察长一案中的最新判决，该案禁止酷刑和虐待被拘留者，但承认有必要作为审讯者可能的刑事辩护。Tbeish并非被视为与过去的突破，甚至不是法律的变化，但我认为它为酷刑和虐待提供了新的授权。法院维持了以色列安全局（isa）建立了适用“特殊审讯手段”的“必要程序”。法院的指导方针规避的具体建设明确禁止在pcati在一般规则确定标准使用特殊询问部件，通过转动过程变成一个所谓特设在没有预先存在的规则的情况下就每个个案做出决定。然而，本文认为，该决定批准了使用暴力讯问手段的事先授权制度。该准则创建了组织决策的框架，通过将必要性的含义和功能从刑事辩护转变为政府行为原则，从而减轻了询问者对潜在违法行为的个人责任。因此，它们为违反禁止酷刑的行为提供官僚授权和正当理由。